Turcotte had the wind knocked out of him as he hit at the base of the pylon, and for that he was grateful, given the fate of the other seven men. Excalibur had left a three-inch-deep gouge down the entire length of the pylon, but it had slowed him enough for him to survive.
He hefted the arm holding the MK-98. He put Excalibur back into its sheath, then reached to the large pack on his back and made sure the tactical nuclear warhead they’d cannibalized from the Tomahawks was still in place. When he’d been in Special Forces Turcotte had served briefly on a SADM — Strategic Atomic Demolitions Munitions — team. He’d supervised the removal of seven of the ten warheads and their preparation.
Unfortunately, once removed from the missile casing, there had been no way to rig them for detonation on impact, only manual activation. Catching his breath, Turcotte looked about. The base of the pylon was about fifty meters from the top edge of the bowl that held the array. He saw no sign of the Airlia.
He moved toward the dish.
Duncan heard the thud as the Talon bumped into the side of the mothership next to the airlocks. She checked the exterior view as the lean ship came into place, exactly where it had left. She hit the control panel and more thuds reverberated through the ship as the clamps locked onto the Talon. Then she sealed the locks with a password so that the Talon couldn’t escape.
She tapped a few more commands into the panel. Satisfied, she turned around and waited, facing the entry way.
How close was close enough? Turcotte roughly knew the blast radius of the bomb he was carrying — at least on Earth. He wasn’t sure if the effects would be any different here on Mars. It had been a large issue of contention when he’d been on the SADM team because while half the team were the bomb handlers, the other half were snipers whose job was to keep the bomb under what the army termed “positive control with firepower” until detonation. Baby-sitting a nuclear weapon was not anyone’s idea of a fun time. Team members had pretty much agreed that despite the assurances of the experts about blast effects, the protective snipers were dead men. In fact, they had assumed that the delay that they were told was built into the bomb to give those placing it time to escape didn’t exist.
Turcotte had accepted the same fate when he’d come up with his plan.
He’d also decided that the green glowing component held by the wires had to be the critical node for the array. That was what he needed to destroy in order to ensure that any Airlia survivors could not rebuild the system.
Close enough would be right below the center, Turcotte decided.
The escape pod automatically slowed as it neared the surface of Mars. It still hit at a high rate of speed and rolled for over a mile before coming to a halt. Those inside were strapped in tight to oversize seats, but as the craft rolled, they were spun about in a dizzying fashion.
The interior became a mixture of strapped-in, bruised people and vomit. When the pod finally came to a halt, the four occupants looked at each other. Leahy, the newest member of the Area 51 team, was the first to break the silence. “What do we do now?”
Yakov unbuckled from the seat and wiped off the front of his shirt. He shrugged. “We wait. There is nothing else to do.”
“Wait for who?” Leahy demanded. “For what?”
“Those are both very good questions,” Yakov acknowledged. “Most likely we are waiting to die.”
“Mike.”
Turcotte paused on the lip of the array as he heard Duncan’s voice. “Yes?”
“The Talon is here. I’ve locked it to the mothership so it can’t get away. I can see them boarding through the airlock on the display. Artad is with them.”
“He’s there?” Turcotte had hoped that Artad would try to regain the mothership before sending a message. That’s what most generals would do — improve their situation before reporting back to higher command.
“Yes. I recognize him.”
“Are you pulling him out of orbit and away?” “No.”
Turcotte frowned. The plan was for Duncan to get Artad away while the drop team — now down to just him — destroyed the array. Turcotte could see several large-tracked vehicles off to his right along with some prefab structures, which he assumed currently contained the Airlia who had finished the array. Along with the controls for the transmitter.
“What are you going to do?” Turcotte checked the upward view. He couldn’t see the mothership against the dark sky, although he knew it had to be getting closer.
“Where are you?” Duncan asked instead of answering. “On the lip of the array.”
“Move away. Fast.”
“Why? I’m supposed—” “Do it.”
Then it came to him. What she planned to do. He choked back the words of protest because as soon as he understood her plan, he also knew it was the best course of action. Turcotte turned away from the array and activated the jets, leaning forward and moving away quickly.
“Mike?” “Yes?”
“The others are on the surface. In an escape pod. About five kilometers from the array.” She rattled off some grid coordinates.
“I’ve got it. But—”
“The Fynbar was shot down by Artad’s Talon. It’s damaged but I think it will still fly.” She quickly gave him some instructions as he bounded away from the array.
When she was done there was a moment of silence. “Lisa.”
“Yes?” She sounded distracted. “I’m sorry it had to go this way.” “It’s for the best.” “I know.” “What I did to you was wrong. But I was so lonely after so many years. And I needed help.” Turcotte was heading down Mons Olympus, although the grade was so gentle there was very little angle of descent. “It’s all right.”
“I have to go now. They’re cutting into the control room door.”
Turcotte paused, checking the upward view. “What is the truth behind all this, Lisa?”
“Kelly Reynolds is transmitting from Hawaii,” Duncan said. “She knows. She’ll tell you. Then you need to decide what to do with that knowledge. Good luck.” There was the sound of an explosion and the link went dead.
A piece of shrapnel from the breached door hit Lisa Duncan in the shoulder and ripped through her body and the seat she was in, smacking the wall behind her. She hardly noticed the pain after all she had been through recently.
A seven-foot-tall Airlia strode through the hole. He paused when he saw her sitting in the command seat. She knew he was searching his memory and she saw the expression cross his face as he recognized her.
Duncan smiled and hit a red hexagonal button in the arm of the chair. Everyone staggered as the mothership abruptly accelerated.
Artad dashed forward, ignoring her and running his six-fingered hands over the control console. To no avail.
Lisa Duncan closed her eyes and thought of her husband and son. Of her planet. Of her people.
Turcotte saw the mothership — a black form flashing through the sky — coming straight down and accelerating so fast he almost lost sight of it as it went into the array.
The concussion from the impact hit him with a tidal wave of red dirt, rock, and Martian air. Turcotte was lifted from the ground and “rode” the front of the wave over two kilometers, before being unceremoniously deposited on the surface.
He scrambled to his feet and looked up. Where the mothership had crashed into the array there was nothing but a huge gaping hole in the side of Mons Olympus.