The craft disappeared inside the barn, the A-frame roof closing to seal the vessel inside its secret port.
Leaning on the broom, Adam made his way across the gravel driveway to the barn door and pressed his ear to the heavy reinforced barrier to hear two men yelling inside—
— the argument ending with a shot of gunfire.
Adam hid behind the barn door as it swung open, releasing a Caucasian man in his forties, his brown hair receding in front but long in the back, ending in a tight ponytail. He was dressed in a black Delta Force jumpsuit, a Beretta handgun in his right hand, the pilot’s helmet in his left.
“Drop the gun or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
The commando stopped; his back to Adam. “Sounds like a bad western. How am I supposed to know if you’re really armed?”
Adam fired a shot between the man’s feet.
“I guess that settles the matter.” He lowered his gun, allowing it to fall to the gravel-covered driveway by his right boot. “Your move, cowboy.”
“Who did you shoot inside the barn?”
“The guy MAJI sent to kill you. You are Adam Shariak, yes?”
“And you are?”
“Chris Mull. I work with your fiancée. May I turn around just to confirm who you are?”
Without waiting for a reply the commando turned to face Adam. “Ah, it is you… fantastic. About a week ago we learned a TWEP order had been placed on you. Jessica begged me to save your sorry ass. I managed to change the duty roster in order to accompany the hit man. His name was Captain Joshua LaCombe. The body’s inside the barn.”
“What about the girl?”
“Girl? What girl?”
“Kelly Kishel. MAJI sent her to kill me.”
“Never heard of her. Where is she?”
“Dead.”
For a brief second the commando’s eyes went vacant like a predator’s, devoid of a soul. “You killed her?”
“No, the bikers handled that. But I thought you said this guy, LaCombe was sent to kill me?”
“Apparently MAJI brought in back-up.”
“Where’s the zero-point-energy device?”
“What zero-point-energy device is that?”
The bullet splintered the gravel between Chris Mull’s feet.
“Take it easy, Shariak. I’m on your side.”
“That remains to be seen. Now show me the device.”
“No problem, it’s inside the ARV.” Mull walked back toward the barn, slipping the helmet on his head as he approached Adam. “Jessica told me you flew Apaches in Iraq. You’d love flying one of these ET ships. The helmet links your thought commands to the—”
“Stop.”
“Stop… start… get the ZPE unit… make up your mind.”
“I said stop!” Adam fired again, causing the man to halt a few paces away. “The headpiece… take it off and hand it to me.”
“It won’t work for you.”
“As long as it doesn’t work for you.”
Chris Mull’s smile cracked a second before he whipped the headpiece at Adam, the helmet knocking the broomstick out from under him.
Balancing on his only leg, Adam attempted to shoot his assailant, only Mull had circled behind him. As he turned, the MAJI agent launched a front thrust kick, catching him flush in the solar plexus and driving him backward through the open barn door.
Adam flopped on the hay-covered concrete slab like a fish out of water. He wheezed but could not draw a breath, the air driven from his lungs, the bundle of nerves below his ribcage momentarily paralyzed. He tried to raise the gun—
— only to have the Delta Force commando kick it out of his hand.
“You killed Kelly, didn’t you?”
The instep of the man’s boot struck him on the right side of his chest, bruising two ribs.
“You’re in a world of hurt, my friend. After I take care of you I’m heading back to Dulce to deal with your fiancée. Me and Jessica… we’re going to have a lot of fun as I—”
Chris Mull leaned over to retrieve Adam’s gun — and vaporized.
Adam looked up in disbelief. One moment he was there, the next… poof. All that remained was a dispersing trail of humidity.
Unable to breathe, Adam rolled over onto his back, each wheezed breath managing to push a little more air into his starving lungs. Thoughts raced at him, demanding answers but breathing was his first priority, pain a close second.
Opening his eyes, he found himself staring at the underside of the man-made space craft. There was no landing gear; the vessel was simply floating ten feet above the barn’s concrete floor.
And then he heard a voice.
“… to your right. Shariak, pick up the headpiece.”
He glanced to his right and saw it lying six feet away.
Forcing himself onto his belly, he crawled to the device and placed it on his head, registering a zzzzzztt of current in his brain.
“Shariak, can you hear me?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Far side of the barn… by the bales of hay.”
Adam diverted to a metal rake and used it to lean on as he circled the floating vessel.
He saw the trail of blood… then he saw the man.
Captain Joshua LaCombe was leaning back against a bale of hay, his blood-soaked hands pressing weakly against an entrance wound in his abdomen and an exit wound in his left lung. He was pale and bleeding out very fast.
“How did you vaporize Mull?”
“Head-piece. ARVs are fully weaponized… just don’t use them in space. Listen carefully. Inside the lower level are three gravity amplifiers. Omicron configuration…”
He ceased talking, the blood gurgling in his windpipe.
Adam reached for him, only the commander’s telepathic voice interceded.
Shariak, focus! Omicron configuration flies sublight speed using one gravity amplifier. Delta configuration uses all three as a bow-wave to go transdimensional. I rigged the ZPE unit to eject from your console when you go Delta.
“You expect me to fly this thing?”
No choice. MAJI will terminate my wife and son, along with Jessica and your unborn kid. Get to Dulce and shut them down.
“But how am I—”
An ARV is like an Apache… just think and it moves. Beware of Zeus SATS… they’re armed.
“Okay. Anything else?
Tell Joyce and my boy…
Adam watched as Joshua LaCombe’s eyes glazed over. “Captain?”
Did he say my unborn kid?
He looked up as the sound of motorcycles approached in the distance.
Leaning on the rake, Adam limped to the barn door and sealed it, then returned to the hovering disk. Looking up at the curved underside, he noticed a hexagon-shaped honeycombed configuration.
“Think the hatch open.”
Open, please.
The honeycomb pattern pixilated, collapsing upon itself to become a hatch.
Okay, that was cool. Adam balanced on his right leg fourteen feet beneath the opening. Now how am I supposed to climb up in there?
A strange sensation made him smile, then he laughed out loud as his body became weightless and the ARV’s anti-gravity bubble swept him up inside the ship.
The Genetics Lab occupied two levels and more than six square miles of the subterranean complex’s lower floors. Promising to limit the tour to two locations, Joyce escorted Jessica to an ET repository — a dark chamber where the preserved remains of several dozen interstellar life forms were floating in clear vertical tubes of liquid.