Legacy

16

Three of the Chinese approached cautiously.

It had been hard to control the soldiers as they took up defensive positions on the low side of the sloping area. As Sarah looked around, she knew that the depression they were in wasn’t like the rest of the terrain. The Moon had no hills. Sarah mentally slapped herself and brought her thoughts back to the current situation.

The first Chinese astronauts reached the bottom of the depression and stood there. Their gold-tinted visors were down. The first man stood with his legs apart. He had his comrades lower the weapons.

Whew. No shootout.

The lead man stepped forward six tentative steps. He raised his gold visor. Sarah watched him closely. His red space suit was not unlike theirs. Their weapons were simpler, explosive-driven kinetic-energy weapons, but far more compact than DARPA’s design.

“Colonel Kendal?” the man asked in passable English.

Sarah stepped forward, her hands still held out.

“The colonel was killed by debris in space. I am Lieutenant Sarah McIntire, U.S. Army.”

“You are in command?” the man asked looking over at the others, who were in various positions around the base of the incline. “Do you speak for the ESA contingent also?”

“I am a geologist. I have command of the American unit.”

One of the ESA men stood and shouldered his weapon over the large oxygen package on his back.

“I am Captain Philippe Jarneux. We are under the command of our rescue team. Our lander was severely damaged upon touchdown. Thus I offered the lieutenant the services of my command, since she is the only surviving mission specialist.”

“I am Major General Kwan Xiang, commander of the People’s Republic spacecraft Magnificent Dragon. ” He took a few steps forward. “On orders of our new chairman, and the people of my country, I am to offer you any and all assistance in the mission as outlined by your president to our chief of staff.”

Sarah saluted the general. The general returned the salute.

The Chinese force shouldered their weapons and started down the incline. A sigh of relief passed through the allied ranks as they too stood and relaxed, making it much easier to breathe the tanked air.

“General, I bow to your superior rank,” Sarah said as she lowered her hand.

“That will not be necessary, Lieutenant, as I doubt very much we will run into a military situation on this floating rock. I believe you are better suited to carry on the mission as commander of the ground teams. We have other work to conclude. We need to create space aboard two spacecraft for the addition of the ESA team.”

Sarah nodded, then realized that the general couldn’t see her head bob in the large helmet. She just gestured, hoping the general would follow her. As they moved toward the area where the men were, the other eleven Chinese soldiers joined the group of astronauts. Sarah was happy to see men shaking hands and patting one another on their backpacks.

“Lieutenant, I think you’d better see this.” Will Mendenhall addressed Sarah by her rank for the benefit of the Chinese general. “Sergeant, show the lieutenant and the general what we’re standing on,” Will said.

Forty feet away, a French sergeant scraped away some of the lunar dust. When that didn’t seem to do the job fast enough, he went to his knees and clumsily started shoveling handfuls of dust into the light gravity. Metal tubing. As her eyes followed the shape under the lunar surface, she could now see what had caused the rise in the moonscape. There was something buried just under the surface.

“You men spread out and follow the line under the surface. Stand as far apart as necessary, until we can figure out the shape of this thing.”

As she spoke, the general ordered his men to follow the American lieutenant’s instructions. Sarah walked to the center of the circle of men and saw something at her boots. The general saw it at the same time and both bent over to dig. When three of her men came forward to assist, she ordered them back to their line.

“Hold position, Will,” she said over her radio, as she and the Chinese officer dug at a rapid pace.

“Be careful not to pierce your gloves, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t want to lose you now.”

“Yeah, we took the same classes,” she said. “Whatever this thing is, it’s sitting in an impact area.”

They uncovered a hard, silver-looking surface.

“My God,” she said as she stood up. “It’s round.”

The Chinese general staggered as he saw what Sarah was pointing out.

“Oh, shit,” Will Mendenhall said. “It’s a damned flying saucer, Lieutenant.”

The men were silent as they realized that they were standing on wreckage. The round shape made Will’s words understandable to everyone.

“There is something here also,” a voice said over the radio.

The men turned and saw one of the ESA men waving a short distance away. They covered the distance in a brisk hundred steps. Another object. This one was elongated, far larger than the round form in the dust. She could see the remains of massive steel-like rails that ran on for six hundred feet. Compartments of some kind? Was the wreckage of this behemoth lying on its side?

The general and several of his men started uncovering something else. When they were finished, they stepped back and became silent as Sarah approached. The Chinese general pointed at the mangled mess that was buried half in and half out of the lunar surface.

“From historic photos I remember seeing the very formidable ships of the world war. If I didn’t know any better, Lieutenant, I would say we are looking at a gun turret-a rather large one.”

Sarah looked up at the general and then her eyes saw the shape her lineup of men had created. Then she looked down at the bent and protruding barrel of a large bore weapon. She saw the cannon as it disappeared into a housing like a giant gun turret. Long and shaped like an elongated arrowhead.

“General, I think what we’re standing on is a warship.”

Sarah, the general, and the French colonel stood off to the side as the American and Chinese broke down the four American sleds and the six Chinese transports.

“The mineral is a main concern. It seems all our governments want this item more than anything. They seem to think that it’s here on the Moon in some abundance. I for one will not chance the safety of the men here for the sake of bringing back such a dangerous material. We will bring back only samples, along with an estimate of its availability. We’ll leave recovering larger quantities for another, better-equipped expedition. Are we agreed on this?”

General Kwan bent at the waist inside his bulky space suit, indicating his agreement with Sarah’s proposal, as did Captain Jarneux.

“I suggest that we break into two groups, one to uncover as much of this warship as possible for closer study, the other to continue into the crater to examine the remains of the base,” Kwan suggested.

“Agreed,” Sarah said, and then looked at the Frenchman.

“Captain,” Kwan continued. “may I suggest that you and half of the men remain here and excavate as much of this vessel as you can, while the lieutenant takes the other half and reconnoiters the crater?”

“Yes, I can do that, General.”

Sarah hit the COM switch on her wrist.

“Will, bring me four of our men and half the equipment. Make sure we have the magnetometers and Geiger counters. We don’t want to run into anything that will contaminate our ride home. Tell Sergeant Andrews he’s to be our scout and he will be accompanied by four of General Kwan’s men.” Sarah looked at Kwan, who nodded inside his helmet.

“Roger,” Mendenhall said as he chose the men and started making sure of their supplies.

“A wise precaution, Lieutenant,” Kwan said. He turned to his second in command and issued orders for five of his men to get ready to enter Shackleton.

Then, the Moon moved.

Sarah saw the dust underneath her shadow jump and then settle back.

“I don’t believe we were briefed on the possibility of moonquakes,” Jarneux said. He looked around nervously.

“There can’t be a moonquake, because there’s no seismic activity on the Moon in any form,” Sarah said, as she looked to the others for a possible explanation.

“You don’t think there could be a power source still active on whatever it is we have uncovered here, do you?” Jarneux asked.

“All I can say is that I doubt very much this thing is active. It’s hard to tell its age because there looks to be no deterioration of the metal properties due to the lack of an atmosphere. And since this is no earthly design, unless the colonel here has been hiding a Chinese leap in technology we didn’t see coming, I would say it’s old. I doubt anything on it could possibly be working.”

“I hope you are right, Lieutenant,” the French captain said, and went to begin directing the efforts of his men.

Unlike Jack in Ecuador, Sarah didn’t connect the use of her electronic communications equipment to the strange vibration. She never even felt the first effects when she tried to contact Jason in Altair.

“Will, General Kwan, we should be off,” Sarah checked her chronometer. “I would like to send two men back to the Altair soon to make contact with Ryan and find out who could be jamming us.”

“I wish to send someone back also, Lieutenant, and since our two landers are on the same compass heading, may I suggest a joint effort? It would leave us shorthanded, but I would rather err on the side of caution in this instance,” General Kwan said, looking around the area.

Sarah again nodded her head. “Sergeant Tewlewiski,” Sarah said over her shortwave. “Join us, please.”

The general called over one of the men who was preparing for the short trek into Shackleton. The two men joined them and they were given instructions.

“I suspect we’re far beyond secrets here,” Sarah said as she looked the two men over, “and since Altair is closer, you should replenish your air there before moving on to Magnificent Dragon. Regardless, continue to try to raise Ryan as you go. Maybe this jamming will let up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the sergeant said as he half bowed to his Chinese travel companion and gestured that they should start out.

“Shall we go, General?” Sarah said.

The Chinese general looked around the airless void, then turned to McIntire. “Yes, Lieutenant, because in all honesty, I would wish to conclude our business here as quickly as possible.”

Sergeant Tewlewiski tried to make small talk, but with the two communications systems sounding scratchy at best and the two soldiers unable to speak the same language, he had given up any attempts at conversation as they trudged through the lunar dust toward Altair. He knew that the Chinese soldier was a sergeant too and that his name was Chao. He didn’t understand the man’s first name so Tewlewiski just called him Chao; for everything else he used hand gestures. He would point to his wrist when it was time for Chao to attempt contact with Magnificent Dragon. The signal transmission was still being jammed, but by what they didn’t know. All of their attempts to raise Altair or the Chinese LEM were being made while they were on the move. Like Sarah, the two soldiers never felt the vibrations coming through the lunar dust. After attempting contact, they would simply bound away, actually enjoying the walk toward Altair in the light lunar gravity.

Finally Tewlewiski saw the Altair, only sixty-five feet away. He saw no movement at the large triangular windows on the upper deck, so he assumed Ryan was either on the crew deck or going through his preflight checklist as ordered by the lieutenant. He pointed his gloved hand almost proudly at the LEM. Chao nodded in the exaggerated way necessary in the bulky environment suits. The sergeant raised his left wrist and pushed the blue button just above the wrist.

“ Altair, this is ground team, do you copy, over,” he called through the embedded microphone in his helmet. He didn’t want to surprise Ryan without making a last attempt to contact him. “Come on, Ryan, you got your ears on?” Tewlewiski said, breaking proper radio protocol.

Sergeant Chao grabbed Tewlewiski’s wrist and held it still. He raised his right boot from the dust and nodded his head downward.

Tewlewiski didn’t understand at first, then he felt it. There was a vibration emanating from the lunar dust. He tilted his head and wondered what it could be. As he went slowly to his knees he felt the same vibration through his gloves, only stronger since the gloves weren’t as thick as their boots.

“What the hell is that?” he asked through the COM system.

“This is Altair. Is that any way to talk on the radio, you Army puke? You want the FCC to fine us?”

Tewlewiski gave out a yelp as Ryan’s signal blasted through loud and clear. Even Sergeant Chao jumped when he heard the call. Tewlewiski rose to his feet with heart racing. Both men started to laugh.

“Damn, Ryan, we’ve been trying to raise you for the past two hours, over.”

“Well, that’s funny. I’ve been trying the same thing with you guys. I was about ready to suit up and come out there looking for you. I do have some more bad news. The Russian command module went off the air. It seems they may have COM problems too. Or maybe they lost the whole shebang, I don’t know. I could hear them one minute and nothing the next. We can still receive from time to time, depending on the orbits of COM satellites, but we can’t broadcast. So it looks like the Russians are out of the ball game altogether.” There was a pause as Jason climbed onto the command deck. “Hey, I see you brought a friend with you.”

Tewlewiski looked over at Chao, who was not looking at him in return. He was staring down at the surface of the Moon and not moving. Then the American understood why, the vibration had increased to the point it felt as if a bus were passing by just underneath the surface.

“Hey Ryan, do you feel anything?”

“Yes, dear, I feel lonely out here all by myself.”

“Nut, that’s not what I mean. There’s a vibration that keeps-”

Suddenly the ground between the two men erupted skyward, sending Sergeant Chao flying through the airless space to land twenty feet away. As the ground sprayed upward in the thirty-yard arc, a massive shape seemed to rise above Tewlewiski.

“Jesus, what the hell was that?” Ryan called out, as he gripped the triple window pane on the command deck of Altair. Then he became silent as he saw for the first time just what was standing over Tewlewiski. “Oh, shit, get the hell out of there!” Ryan called out.

The American finally raised his helmeted head and saw what was looking down at him. The machine stood just shy of twenty feet tall. He could see the stainless steel gears spinning and grinding inside its humanoid frame. The torso was thick and covered in armor plate. The arms looked as though they were made from six different lengths of thick hardened steel, culminating in a hand with three sharpened fingers. The head was rounded and there was no mouth, only two giant red eyes that rotated left and right as they took in Tewlewiski. As the sergeant watched in shock, he saw two more arms exit the armored torso. The thick left leg lifted and took a step toward the sergeant.

“Oh, shit, Ryan, tell me you’re seeing this?”

“Tewlewiski, just get the hell out of there!” Ryan called out.

The giant mechanical monstrosity tilted its rounded head and swiveled to the right. The neck elongated and spiraled outward toward the spot where Sergeant Chao had landed. He was attempting to rise to his feet when he saw what was confronting him. Chao hesitated as he gained his knees. As if in a slow-motion dream he tried to remove the weapon from his back, but the strap caught on his oxygen container. The beast’s eyes rotated; it was following what Chao was doing. Its neck retracted into its body. The mechanical monstrosity took two steps backward and halted. Tewlewiski froze, but the Chinese sergeant didn’t. He finally maneuvered the kinetic weapon from his back and without aiming he fired it three times, launching the faster-than-sound bolts of tungsten steel toward the beast. The first two rounds slammed into the steel plate of the torso; the third hit a shoulder blade that was nothing more than hardened plate. The machine rose and waggled as if it were a man who had accidentally hit himself on the thumb with a hammer. A solar panel rose from the area under the plate and then vanished again almost as quickly. The beast turned its eyes toward Chao. It moved faster than either man could believe. It reached Chao in three giant steps and picked him up. While holding the sergeant in one hand, the beast swiped at Tewlewiski with the other. He managed to duck, but the Army sergeant knew he’d be dead in a moment anyway as he felt the sharpened steel fingertips penetrate his suit at the waist. He cursed just as several kinetic energy rounds struck the metal giant in the back.

Chao was firing a continuous stream of tungsten rounds at the mechanical beast and he could see the giant flinch as the half pound missiles struck its back. It was as if the rounds were causing it pain.

“The solar panels on its back, can you hit them?” Ryan called as he scrambled inside the command deck on Altair.

The Chinese sergeant took aim and fired again. The beast turned its full attention on the struggling Tewlewiski. Chao heard the desperate sounds coming from the American’s COM system and knew the sergeant was being squeezed to death. Chao kept up the steady stream of rounds, trying to aim for the spot where the double blades of steel covered the solar panels that Ryan must believe was its power source. Except for the loud pinging coming through the Chinese radio system, the small battle was as silent as the grave.

Finally it was if the beast had had enough of the game. It turned partially toward Chao and smashed the American astronaut with its free hand. The two steel claws slammed into the helmet and smashed it flat.

“No!” Chao shouted, as he advanced. The robotic killer turned toward him. It charged, but the sergeant held his ground. The beast jumped. Chao kept up the fire even as the beast came down on him, pounding his crushed body into the soft soil.

Ryan stared through the triangular window with the environmental suit only up to his waist.

The mechanical assassin straightened, its steel foot still firmly planted on the body of Chinese soldier. Its head rotated left and then right, and then went completely around in a circle. It seemed to look straight at Ryan, but paid him no attention. Then the robot simply fell over into the dust, curling into a large ball. It started to roll like tumbleweed in the direction of Shackleton Crater.

Alice Hamilton watched Garrison Lee as he mumbled in his drug-induced sleep. She had been against his traveling, but she knew that arguing with him would have been as useless as shouting at a brick wall.

She was sitting on a small camp chair in the darkened tent next to his cot. She reached out and took his hand and squeezed it. He stopped mumbling and settled down. She heard him call out her name softly and then his face relaxed. She reached up with her free hand and wiped a tear away that had slid down her cheek. Alice had never been one to cry, even when sorrow was bursting to break free of her soul.

She took a deep breath and reached over to retrieve his old brown fedora. She looked it over and sighed. She always wondered why he insisted on wearing that particular one. She was getting ready to place it back at the foot of the cot when she heard men outside of the tent. She looked at Lee for the briefest moment to make sure he had indeed settled into a deeper sleep, and then she eased her hand out of his. She stood and made her way to the tent flap.

Outside, underneath the hanging lights of the first gallery, Alice saw four men talking to three of Jack’s people that he had left behind after the main force had advanced. She overheard part of the conversation and stepped out of the tent.

“Excuse me, did you say that Colonel Collins has sent you to bring in more men?”

One of the soldiers, a Special Forces sergeant, saw Alice and nodded his head.

“Uh, yes, ma’am. He wants a backup force brought into gallery number two.”

“Has the colonel found something?” she asked, hoping for any information that would take her mind off Garrison.

“So far, ma’am, all I’ve seen are skeletons-Nazi skeletons, close to a thousand or so. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, we’d better get-”

That was as far as the sergeant got before the bullets cut him down. The six men with him didn’t even have time to bring their weapons up before fifty silenced bullets struck them down as well. Alice barely escaped being hit as one of the bullets slammed into the tent pole where she had placed her hand. As she ran to the closest of the fallen men, a hand reached out and took her by the arm.

“I’m sure he is far beyond the need for your attention, madam.”

Alice looked up into the dark eyes of the Mechanic.

She had seen the dossier on him that the FBI had sent Jack. She easily recognized the eyes. The beard was gone and the hair was longer than he wore during his insurgent days in Iraq, but it was the Mechanic.

“Azim Quaida, the Mechanic. Which do you want to be called, young man?” Alice asked. Her gray eyes never left the dark countenance staring at her.

“You know me and yet I do not know you. CIA?” he asked and released her hand.

“You’ve become very popular lately in my country,” she said.

“Yes, I imagine I have. The people responsible for that popularity are no longer in a position to use men such as myself.”

Alice didn’t say anything but tried to block the man’s path as he stepped to the tent flap to enter. He easily moved her to the side. He saw Lee lying on the cot with a blanket pulled nearly to his chin. The Mechanic looked from the old man to the woman who now stood next to him. By the look in the older woman’s eyes, the Mechanic knew that if she had been armed she most definitely would have attempted something stupid.

“I believe I saw you and this man enter the mine during the battle outside. Who are you and why are you here?”

Alice neither moved nor spoke.

“Madam, know that while I don’t particularly like women, I also wish them no harm. However, I have on occasion killed many of them. I shall have no qualms about ending your life.”

“Why don’t you save your questions for the colonel? He’s in there,” she said. She tilted her head to the left, indicating Gallery Number Two.

“Ah, the very resourceful Colonel Collins. You know him on a personal level?”

Alice again didn’t answer.

“You have said nothing, but have answered me nonetheless, madam. I suspect this old man knows him also, and that you may be close to him in some way. Therefore, you will be what is known as a bargaining chip.”

“And you think Jack’s going to deal away whatever you want for two old farts like us?”

“For a mere weapon or two from the excavation, yes, he should have no possible argument.” He turned and raised a flashlight, clicking it on and off twice. “If not, he risks the chance of me killing you and sending the entire cave system tumbling down around them all. And then we all lose. Yes, he will trade, I believe.”

An explosion rocked the gallery. In the distance Alice heard the crashing of rocks and a rumbling beneath her feet.

“Please, don’t be alarmed. We just made sure that the front door closed behind us.”

The Mechanic gestured for his men to assemble. He took Alice by the arm and pulled her toward the back of the chamber, his men falling into step behind them.

Lee mumbled in his sleep, his good eye opening.

He didn’t know what had awakened him, but he felt the last trembling of the earth as it passed through the legs of the cot. He raised his head and felt the cotton in his mouth from the painkillers. He smacked his lips and that was when he thought he heard voices. He tilted his head and listened, but no one spoke again. He tried to sit up but found that his back wouldn’t work the way it should. So he threw his left leg over the side of the cot and moved his right leg over after it. He tapped the ground with his boot and tried to move again. This time he sat up until he could rest his weight on his left elbow. He looked around in the semidarkness of the tent. Alice was gone and that helped him get his thoughts into some sort of order. He finally sat up and saw his hat where one of his feet had knocked it to the floor. To Lee it looked as though it had landed a hundred miles away. He shook his head and closed his good eye. He tried to stand. He pushed upward with one hand and swiveled his hips until he felt his feet under him. Then he pushed with both hands against his knees and he was up.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad for a zombie,” he said to himself. “Now I know why they walk so slow in those movies. It damn well hurts.”

Lee turned shakily and eased the flap aside. He ducked his head back into the tent as the last of the terrorist force vanished through the old composite buildings left by the Visitors.

“What the hell is going on? I take a nap and everything falls to pieces. Where the hell is that old girl?” he asked himself, chancing another look outside. As he finally located the head of the force, Lee saw Alice in the front quarter of the men. She was being pulled along roughly toward the falls where Jack and his men had found the opening.

“Goddamn it,” he hissed. His brow furrowed and his lips set into a straight line.

Garrison Lee turned and looked back into the interior of the tent. He spied his cane and took hold of it. He reached down without feeling any of the previous pain or stiffness, snatched up the fedora, and placed it on his gray head. He stepped out of the tent and saw that the men, with Alice in tow, had vanished into the opening of the next gallery. When he finally looked away he saw the bodies of the men that the Mechanic had just killed. Lee closed his good eye and shook his head. Then something happened that he hadn’t experienced in some time-he became furious, murderously so. He opened his eye and looked at the cane in his hand. He angrily tossed it away and reached down to retrieve one of the fallen soldiers’ weapons. It was an Ingram submachine gun. Lee hefted it and liked the weight of it. He reached down and tore free the ammunition belt. It contained a pouch full of ammo clips for the weapon.

“I’m sorry, young man, but in return for the loan of your weapon I’ll kill the son of a bitch who killed you.”

Collins stood before the cement blockhouse and watched Captain Everett and Major Sebastian Krell enter. He could see the darkened and barred windows flare to life with light, which illuminated still more torn and tattered flags emblazoned with swastikas. The large eagle, symbol of the state, stretched across the opening of the blockhouse and Jack felt anger for what the Germans had done here. As he thought about the situation his eyes never left the windows. He was just dawdling along and totally cut off from any information on the fate of Dark Star. It was starting to drag down his ability to think clearly. Carl was forcing him to do things more in line with the book, reminding him that there were a bunch of young soldiers in here who depended on him.

Jack watched as Everett cleared the large blockhouse. He was coming to the conclusion that he would have to turn over command to Everett or Sebastian, because he was starting to take shortcuts, and shortcuts got men killed. Finally, Everett stepped to the large door.

“All clear, Jack,” he said. He nodded his head, indicating that he believed they had found just what they had come to Ecuador to find. “Mr. Director, you’d better bring in your equipment.”

Niles closed his eyes and thanked God that they had finally found something that would make all this death not as meaningless as it otherwise would have been. He gestured to the twenty soldiers who were carrying their cases, including a large computer for Pete.

“Are you coming, Jack?” Niles asked.

Collins acted as though he hadn’t heard Niles. This was the second time the director had noticed that Jack had wandered away in his mind.

Finally Niles slapped Collins on the shoulder and faced him.

“Colonel, are you with us?”

Jack nodded his head and, without saying a word, stepped past Niles and the men carrying the equipment. He went into the blockhouse.

Compton watched until he vanished and then turned to see Ellenshaw looking at him.

“Charlie, lend a hand and let’s get this thing over with.”

“Didn’t you feel that?” he asked, not even hearing Niles.

“What?”

“It felt like, I don’t know, a deep rumble, like an explosion.”

“Just help with this equipment, Charlie,” Niles said as he followed Jack inside the concrete laboratory.

Niles stood beside Jack and saw the technologically advanced weapons sitting in what looked like a large gun rack. There had to be close to a hundred of them. They were all intact and despite being covered in dust looked brand-new. Around the large room there were workstations, a much more elaborate setup than in the first gallery’s lab. There were film projectors and screens. There was what appeared to be discs of some kind, lined up and protected by clear plastic. There was a whole row of hanging alien environment suits, complete with helmets protected from the passage of time by the very plasticlike material they were made from. On the far concrete wall was a flag, and it was this that Jack and the others were staring at. It was blue, and it had the four circle emblem just like the one the senator had drawn for them in his dining room. The circles were blue, red, white, and gray. The flag was trimmed with gold tassels and it had a golden triangle in the upper left-hand corner.

“Wow,” a voice said from behind them.

Charlie Ellenshaw and Pete Golding entered the laboratory and set down the large case they had been struggling with. Appleby and Dubois followed them in and they too were kids seeing Disneyland for the first time.

“Amazing, simply amazing,” Appleby said as he saw the stored weapons of these ancient Visitors to the planet.

“Oh,” Ellenshaw said. He advanced into the room and found himself staring at a globe. It was large, about ten feet in diameter, and the Germans had covered it with a sheet of plastic. With Pete’s help, Ellenshaw pulled the sheet of thick plastic from the large globe. Both men stared at the unfamiliar terrain of a world that wasn’t theirs. “A green ocean, almost like our own. And look at the continents. They’re much smaller than ours and there are only-” Charlie slowly spun the globe. “-three large ones compared to our seven.”

Pete stepped back and looked at the ocean-covered world. He tilted his head and almost ran to the crate that he and Charlie had just wrestled inside. He pulled out his laptop. Before Jack could stop him, he opened the lid and turned it on. Collins, Niles, Sebastian, and Everett froze. They felt a momentary vibration, sharp and hard, which vanished far faster than the vibrations that had preceded it.

“Doc, you take it easy. Don’t make sudden moves like that.”

Golding ignored him. He was busy attaching what looked to be a camera to the laptop. He ran out a line and placed the small camera on the tabletop facing the globe.

“Did I ever tell you my big hobby when I was a kid, Niles?”

“No, Pete, you didn’t.”

Charlie Ellenshaw watched Pete move around like a bug on a hotplate. He smiled as he saw the enthusiasm in the computer man’s face.

“Well, it was astronomy. Mostly kid stuff. My parents bought me telescopes. I sent letters to NASA asking for pictures, things like that. Well, I had one set of pictures that amazed me and I used to stare at them for days on end.”

“You go, Pete,” Charlie said. He loved the way Golding had become excited. Ellenshaw knew that feeling of discovery and wanted Pete to take it all in.

Jack, Everett, Sebastian, and Niles turned and looked at Charlie, who smiled timidly.

“Europa, are you online?” he asked the laptop.

“Yes, Dr. Golding,” Europa answered in her sexy voice.

Appleby, the director, looked over at the MIT professor and raised his brows as the computer spoke in her Marilyn Monroe voice.

“Europa, do you see the planet’s representation in your camera lens?”

“Yes.”

“Do you recognize the surface features of the planet represented?”

Europa was silent for a moment. Pete looked up at the faces staring at him.

“Yes, Doctor.”

Pete stepped up to the large globe and pointed to a raised area mostly covered with snow. The mountain towered from the center of one of the landmasses.

“Europa, according to your records from NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope, what is the name of this mountain?”

“It is actually a volcano, Olympus Mons. Mons means mountain. It is the highest known mountain in the solar system.”

Oh, my God,” Appleby said as he stepped toward the globe and saw what Pete had noticed right off.

“Olympus Mons is calculated to be 373 miles across at its base and eighteen miles high,” Europa added, as if she were bragging about her knowledge.

Pete spun the globe and pointed at another mountain.

“In relation to the polar north and south, what mountain would you say this is?”

“Tharsis Montes, actually a mountain range consisting of three extinct volcanoes, located south of the previously mentioned Olympus Mons.”

“I can’t believe it,” Niles said, finally understanding what Europa, Pete, and Appleby saw.

“Do you mind letting us humans in on what you’re looking at?” Everett asked, angry that they were being left out of the thought process. The room remained quiet.

“Europa, what is the name of the planet you are currently examining?” Jack asked, showing that he had no patience for the amazement in the scientists’ faces.

“Mars.”

Jack was stunned. He leaned against the edge of the large table. He looked over at Everett and Sebastian and saw in their faces that they were just as stunned as he was.

“Look at the oceans,” Ellenshaw said. He joined Pete and placed a hand on his shoulder. They all stared at the world known to them their entire lives as the red planet, only now learning that it had once been beautiful and filled with green vegetation and gorgeous oceans.

“Niles, are you going to say that this is where our Visitors came from?” Everett asked, as everyone else remained silent.

“I’m not saying anything, Carl. Nothing at all.”

Ellenshaw saw something sitting in the corner. It was larger than the globe of Mars and was also covered in plastic. Charlie kicked a swastika-embossed flag out of the way and struggled with the thick plastic. He pulled on the tarp, assisted by Everett and Sebastian. As the plastic fell free they were stunned to see three more globes.

Jack looked at Compton and they both thought the same thing at the same time. Niles pulled the first and largest globe away from the wall.

“Earth,” Appleby volunteered. “Before the continents separated.”

The globe was mostly blue, totally covered in water except for the one and only landmass on one side of the world.

“The Pangaea supercontinent,” Niles said, looking from the globe to Jack. “Earth, about seven hundred million years ago.”

Collins pulled the third and fourth globes over. They looked almost alike. Both were dead-looking worlds. One, Jack saw, was the Earth’s Moon. The other was larger and far darker in color. Jack examined the globes and found holes in each. He asked Carl for help and together they pulled the Earth and Mars globes over. Jack reached out and removed a thin rod that had been attached to the large moon. He reattached it to a hole in the Earth globe. He tried the same with a rod from the smaller moon, but the rod wouldn’t fit into the hole on the other side of Earth. So he raised the metal bar on the smaller moon and the steel slipped in, where it locked. Then he tried the steel rod from the larger moon. It connected nicely to the small moon.

“What the hell?” Sebastian said, as everyone in the room stepped closer, curious what Jack was doing.

Collins went to his knees once all the rods were connected and found what he was looking for.

“I’ve always been a wiz at stuff like Rubik’s Cubes and Chinese-box puzzles.” He flipped a small switch at the base that held the large Earth globe off the floor.

Mouths fell open and everyone stopped breathing as the Earth rose off the floor by three feet, supported by its large metal arm. Then Mars lifted by two feet, the small moon by seven feet, and finally the largest moon by five feet. As they all watched, the ancient globes started turning in an orbital pattern. First the Earth, then Mars opposite it, then the small moon around the Earth, and finally the large moon next to Mars.

Sebastian, Ellenshaw, and Pete had to step out of the way as the worlds began their orbital turn. The rods ran around a small track at the equators of each world and the orbital patterns matched the turning of the largest-Earth.

“Holy cow,” Ellenshaw said as he watched the spinning worlds.

“The Earth had three moons, and Mars, the largest moon, was inhabited,” Pete said. He removed his glasses and watched the amazing show in front of him.

Niles faced Jack and smiled. “You never cease to amaze me, Jack.”

“That part was easy. Pete was the one who recognized Mars for what it was.”

“Mars was a moon of Earth. Unbelievable,” Sebastian said.

“Now, what the hell happened to the solar system that eliminated the large moon and sent Mars off to a new orbit thirty-four million miles distant? What could have done that?” the professor from MIT, Dubois, asked.

“What do you make of these?” Ellenshaw asked. He handed Pete one of the two-inch-diameter discs. “Looks like a little CD.”

Pete looked it over. “That is more than likely exactly what it is,” he said. He picked up another and looked it over. “I doubt it’s German-made. I don’t think the Nazis were that advanced.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit. I’ve seen too much strange stuff,” Everett said, also picking up one of the plastic-looking discs.

Sebastian looked over at Everett and then at Jack.

“Colonel, someday you will have to tell me just who the hell you really work for.”

Pete took the disc he was holding and went to the laptop.

“Europa has a two-inch data slot for discs not unlike this one,” he said. He pushed a button on the laptop and a small drawer popped free of the body of the computer. Pete inserted the alien disc and closed the bay.

“Europa, can you read the formatting of the inserted disc?”

“No,” came the immediate answer.

“Wow, she sounds like she doesn’t even like having it in her,” Charlie said, smiling. The smile dimmed as he noticed that no one else was amused by his joke.

“Europa, can you ask the disc to assist in formatting itself to your system?”

“Attempting communication with known language acquired through recent NASA photography.”

“At least they’re talking. That’s something,” Charlie said, once again looking around the room and once again getting stares from everyone. “I’m here all week.”

Suddenly, as they watched, the monitor on the laptop flashed white, then went blank.

“Adjusting video quality,” Europa said. “Cross-referencing alien alphabet. Cross-referencing alien numerical value to thirty-six-word alphabet.”

The monitor flashed once more and a picture materialized that was a cross between an old-fashioned sepia-toned photo and a very old 35-millimeter film. The picture was scratchy and faded in large areas. Numbers appeared on the monitor, flashed twice, and then vanished. They were now looking at a man not very much different from themselves as he gazed into what must have been a camera. His hair was long and very blond. They could see that his eyes were somewhat larger than their own. As the humanoid placed his hands on the desk he was sitting at, they saw that his fingers were longer than theirs. His cheekbones rode high on the front of the face and his ears were smaller.

“Damn near a match of our own physique, wouldn’t you say?” Niles asked. He moved to get a better view of the monitor.

The man was speaking, and Europa was picking up the strange language, trying to reproduce it in type on the screen. Only a few letters appeared, with extensive gaps in the text.

“Europa, what is the percentage of spoken language you are able to translate?” Pete asked.

“Seven percent, Dr. Golding.”

“Can you hypothesize written phonics to make a comprehensible sentence from the words you understand?”

“You wish me to guess, Doctor?”

“Yes, Europa, guess.”

The disc started over and flashed again. Then the recording began once more with the numbers 26779.0012 on the computer screen.

“Do you suppose that’s a disc number or maybe a date?” Dubois asked.

“Those are as good guesses as any,” Appleby said.

“Look at the lettering above the pocket on this person’s shirt,” Everett said as he pointed it out to the others. “It looks like Chinese characters, Cyrillic letters, and Egyptian hieroglyphics combined.”

Pete froze the playback.

“Europa, give us your best guess as to the lettering in quadrant 114.2,” Pete asked, referring to the grid coordinates on the monitor that Europa had placed over the picture.

“Computing,” she said. “‘Gideon’ is the closest match to any of the referenced letters in my database.”

“Gideon,” Jack repeated. “Look at his sleeve. That looks like a rank, possibly a military insignia.”

They all saw the strange birdlike emblem with three vertical stripes passing underneath.

“I think you have something there, boss,” Everett said, “Maybe a full-bird colonel, er, Colonel.”

Pete pushed the play button again.

“We… one… and… disc number 117899.’

Ellenshaw ran his fingers through the pile of two-inch discs. He suddenly stopped and pulled one from the pile, holding it up to his glasses. He looked from the disc in his hand to the monitor as the recording continued. He looked around the room, not really knowing what it was he was looking for. His eyes fell on a piece of equipment he had never seen before. It wasn’t German, and it looked as if it had a lens. He walked over and examined it.

“We’re not going to get anything from this thing, Doc,” Jack said with disappointment. “One in twenty words with Europa even guessing at that one. It’s not scientific.”

“I agree with Jack. We now know that these people were more like us than we previously thought,” Niles said. “That will have to be enough for now.”

“Look at this,” Ellenshaw said from the far corner of the lab. “I found this disc. It has the very same numbers that appeared on the screen a moment ago. I suspect that the person speaking was referencing this disc, or maybe just talking about it.” Charlie was playing with something the others couldn’t see.

Niles, curious what the cryptozoologist was up to, walked over and saw the thick power cables running from a boxlike machine no larger than a shoe box to a wall socket. The cords were twisted with what looked like very old-fashioned electrical wire. He figured the German scientists had rigged a power supply of some kind. As Niles watched, he saw Charlie insert something into the little black box with the glass eye and grab the power cable.

“Charles, no!” Niles yelled, but he was too late and Ellenshaw was too curious and determined.

Suddenly the lights went out and even Europa shut down as all the energy in the room was snatched away by the power cord running to the small black box. As the men went stock-still, the glass eye on the small box activated and the room exploded with light and color. A large depiction of the Earth, 700 million years before the present, appeared as a massive hologram, spinning on its axis. The scene was peaceful and serene.

“What the hell is that?” Appleby asked as he backed away from the giant hologram. “Is that a real view of the Earth back then?”

“Look at the cloud formations. They’re moving,” Pete said. He stepped closer and as he did so the view of the Earth shrank. There was another flash of brightness and the Earth’s largest moon appeared-Mars, almost opposite the Earth on the far side of the sun, but in exactly the same orbit.

The men all jumped as Europa beeped and came back online, apologizing for her loss of signal. The men turned away from the small laptop and looked at Mars as it had been 700 million years before they were born.

“It’s absolutely beautiful,” Ellenshaw said as he moved away from the far wall.

Suddenly the two moons appeared. The larger one looked to be about 300,000 miles from the rotating sphere of Mars and maybe 600,000 miles from the Earth and the moon they all knew. Names appeared below them as a special effects overlay produced by the alien technology.

“Europa, utilize your camera system and view the projected hologram. Translate the names under the orbiting planet to the best of your ability.”

“Complying,” she said.

They all watched the recorded worlds as they spun on their very strange and unfamiliar orbits. All were amazed and no one could speak or take their eyes off the fantastic scene before them.

“I have an approximation of the terminology listed on the hologram, Dr. Golding.”

“Go ahead,” Pete said.

“The planet suspected as being Earth is named Tarrafarr. The planet known as Mars is listed as Polomatan. The small moon is Nomtoo and the large moon is listed as Ophillias, or a close approximation of those words.”

As they watched, they were shocked to see small ships orbiting the planets. The most activity was around Mars, while nothing was in orbit around the volcanically active Earth. But by far the most traffic was around the large moon, Ophillias. They were all watching closely when suddenly the realness of the hologram took on a whole new meaning. The view slowed to one eighth speed and everyone in the room ducked when Ophillias exploded. The action was sudden and terrible. The planetoid shattered as though it had detonated from the inside. The debris shot out in a wide arc, taking everything with it as it traveled. Ships and space stations were swept away in the onrush of mountain-sized pieces of Ophillias. Then they all watched in horror as the debris reached Mars. The remains of the shattered moon hit Mars like a shotgun blast, scouring its surface clean of every feature. The oceans were ripped from their beds and the poles shifted as the planet was pushed from its orbit and flung into deep space.

“Oh, God,” Ellenshaw said, as if they had just witnessed the real-time deaths of billions of people.

The mauling of the solar system continued as the debris from the exploding world hit the small moon and the violent impact shifted it closer to Earth. Their own home world took the next hit. The supercontinent was smashed by pieces of Ophillias. It started to burn. Volcanoes erupted and the planet became a shining ball of gas as the clouds were pulled away and the atmosphere filled with poison.

When the picture settled they saw the new alignment of the solar system. Mars was now the fourth planet from the sun and Earth was still the third, only it was now much closer to the sun. Two large chunks of Ophillias were still intact. They orbited around the newly murdered world of Mars as its new moons, Phobos and Deimos.

The room was silent as the hologram ended. Niles reached out and unplugged the small machine. He shook his head as he realized that they had just witnessed the most catastrophic event in the history of their solar system-all in actual footage.

“I now believe our alien visitors had no choice but to immigrate here,” Niles said.

“But what happened to them?” Charlie asked as he took off his glasses and wiped them on his dirty shirt.

“They came to a hostile world. By the looks of their colony, I don’t think they made it,” Niles said. He looked at the large globes once more. “But there very well could have been a few who did survive. We’re just too close genetically to them to ignore. It may take years to understand, but we are linked somehow, someway.”

Jack was about to ask a question when a shockwave struck the blockhouse. It rocked the interior and men fell to the floor for cover thinking it was an earthquake. Only Jack, Everett, and Sebastian knew that it wasn’t.

“Get out of here and take cover,” Jack yelled as loudly as he could.

As the men started to move, they heard the crackle of small arms fire and then another explosion rocked Gallery Number Two.

Hugh Evans was dozing at his station.

He had been awake for seventy-eight straight hours and refused to leave mission control. His relief would sit in a chair next to him and coordinate efforts with Jet Propulsion Lab in getting signals from the Beatle John and correlating the data against what little telemetry could find its way through regarding Altair. Thus far they were concluding that Altair had reached the surface of the Moon but there had been no word on whether the crew was still alive.

It had been twelve hours since the president announced through a joint communique that the Chinese space program was now cooperating with the ESA and NASA teams. This had come as a gesture of goodwill after the sudden death of their great leader, who had suffered a severe heart attack while sitting at his desk. The disturbing factor in all of this was that all three space programs-the ESA, NASA, and the China National Space Administration-had not one single scrap of evidence that there were live members of any crew on the lunar surface. All communication, including telemetry, from all three platforms, had ceased. The Chinese could only verify that their Magnificent Dragon had achieved orbit and its LEM had reached the surface. Just after the news had been relayed to the Chinese crew that cooperation between the powers had been achieved, communication with the orbiting crew module and the lunar lander had ceased.

Hugh Evans had heard speculation around mission control and the gist of it was that there were ten-to-one odds in favor of all the crews being lost. They would never say that to Evans himself, but the talk was there regardless. The mission thus far had not only lost contact with all elements on and orbiting the Moon, but information had been received through the gossip corridor that the vice president of the United States and executor of the American space program had been placed under house arrest by the FBI. He was more than likely going to be charged for his involvement with Samuel Rawlins, which would implicate the vice president in the assassination attempt on the president. Hugh could only wonder what else could possibly go wrong with Dark Star and the other missions that had been sent to the Moon.

Someone nudged Evans on the arm and he opened his eyes. He was staring at a cup of coffee held by the oncoming CAPCOM specialist.

“Figured since Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain-grown coffee, the coffee would come to Mohammed.”

Evans smiled for the first time in days and sat up in his chair. His eyes felt like there was sand lodged in them. He rubbed them until they were flaming red.

“Thanks,” he said, accepting the white cup. As he did so, he saw the NASA logo on its side and wondered if the program would be extinct after the debacle of the Dark Star missions. Sipping the black coffee, he could only speculate if he was presiding over the extinct dinosaur that was now the space program.

To be so close and to lose the last of the LEMs had been a shock to him and everyone at mission control. The presidential calls to the center asking for any update were the worst. He had spoken to the president twice, offering his latest version of the same information, only to feel the president deflate even further after his pat answer.

“What was that?” a technician called out from the fifty rows of telemetry stations.

Evans glanced up at the large center screen. The picture was still being relayed by the Beatle John and the camera view hadn’t changed. Evans went back to drinking his coffee.

“There it is again. Could someone tell me just what the hell it is? Flight, we have a shadow that has passed over John ’s lens twice now.”

Evans grimaced at the coffee in his cup and placed it on his console. He adjusted his headphones and microphone, and then stood up, hearing his bones cracking as he did. He looked down and let his anger show for the first time that day.

“Who is speaking to me?” he asked. “When someone has something to report, it would be helpful if I knew who I was talking to.”

A young man in row nineteen of mission control stood and looked back at the mission flight controller. Evans was staring down from his high perch with his hands on his hips.

“Sorry, Flight, this is telemetry from John coming in from JPL. We’re getting shadows around the peripherals of the rover’s camera.”

Evans rubbed his eyes and focused on the young kid, who was connected directly to JPL through a computer link.

“Just what the hell does that mean?” he asked.

“I think we have movement around John. ”

Evans looked up at the picture streaming from outside Shackleton Crater. Neither the camera angle nor the rover had moved in days. The picture was still fixed on the center of the interior, showing the devastation after the explosion. As he watched, he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What is JPL saying?” Evans asked.

“Whoever is on duty missed it. I guess I’m the only one who saw it,” the young engineer said, looking timid.

Evans nodded his head and fixed the technician with his tired eyes.

“That’s okay, son. You report anything you see. You never know.” Evans started to sit down and that was when he saw it. He froze halfway to his chair. The rover had moved. “Jesus, has anyone issued a command to John to change positions?” he asked. The heads of three hundred men and women looked up as they wondered what Evans was talking about.

On the main view screen, John began to vibrate and the camera angle went off kilter.

“Good God, we have movement of the rover! It could be slipping down the slope of the crater.”

“No, no,” Evans shouted, as he watched the camera view go further askew. “Not now, not now!”

“Wait a minute. JPL is reporting that it’s not John that’s moving, it’s the camera’s boom arm.”

Everybody in mission control stood as one. The camera angle steadied and the smiling face of a helmeted astronaut came into view, waving a greeting.

An eruption of noise sounded in the aisles of mission control as they recognized the smiling face. It was Sarah McIntire.

“It’s the lieutenant. They made it!” someone shouted from their station.

“Calm, people, calm,” Evans said, as coolly as he could manage. He wanted to jump up and scream himself. He looked over at CAPCOM, who was staring back at Evans and using a handkerchief to wipe at his eyes. Hugh nodded and placed his hands on his hips once more.

On the screen the small geologist held a finger up as the camera angle jostled and then steadied. McIntire disappeared from view and the camera showed several space-suited bodies moving around near the rover. Some wore the distinctive environmental suits of the ESA, and some the white with red trim of NASA, and still others had the solid red-colored suits of the Chinese. Another loud cheer erupted from the floor, and this time Evans himself pumped a fist.

Suddenly a loud crackle from CAPCOM was heard through the speakers lining the walls of the center. Evans looked over at the CAPCOM station and saw his technicians frantically adjusting the sound quality. Just as Evans looked back, McIntire appeared again, this time trailing a long cord from her backpack.

“Hous… this is… copy, over?”

Evans tried to still his racing heart. He realized McIntire had tied into John ’s transmitter and was attempting to broadcast by bouncing the signal off John ’s parent craft, Peregrine. He wanted to reach out through the 244,000 miles and hug the smart little woman.

“Damn it, CAPCOM, clean that up. This I want to hear!” Evans said. For the first time he had emotion exploding from his voice. As he watched, CAPCOM nodded and stared at the main viewing screen.

“Houston, this is Dark Star 3, do you copy, over?” Sarah said from the Moon.

“ Dark Star, this is Houston, we read you loud and clear. Welcome back to the world of the living.”

“Thank you, Houston. It’s good to be back. I am pleased to report that the Eagle has landed.” Sarah smiled and then laughed. “I’ve always dreamed of saying that.”

Evans plopped down into his chair just as the control room exploded with cheers and applause. Hugh felt around in his pockets and then a hand appeared in front of him. It was the young technician from JPL. He was holding a handkerchief out for the flight controller. Evans accepted it and wiped his eyes. He nodded his head as he reached for the phone that had been tied in earlier. He only had to wait a second after picking it up before the call was answered.

“Mr. President, Lieutenant McIntire has just reported from Shackleton Crater. Dark Star is on the Moon and the joint teams, including China, are moving into the crater’s interior.”

There was silence on the other end for the longest stretch Evans had ever endured. Then the president was heard clearing his throat and sniffing.

“Thank you, Mr. Evans-thank you.”

As the line went dead, Hugh Evans looked up with phone still in his hand and all he saw was the smiling face of Sarah McIntire behind her helmet’s glass visor. The little geologist was the new love of his life.

Behind Sarah, Evans could see the joint lunar team moving slowly down the explosion-wracked sides of Shackleton Crater.

The first thing Sarah saw was several large chunks of the mineral. She had no idea if they had been there before the explosion or if they were thrown free of the complex below. She examined one of them up close, and then let it slip from her gloved hand as she noticed for the first time the complex below in the crater’s center. She was amazed at the sight as she took in what was once an underground bunker. The explosion had not only removed the top sixty feet of accumulated lunar dust, it had shattered several of the buildings’ roofs. Inside one she saw what looked like tracked transports of some kind, complete with large tanks and other big pieces of equipment.

“It makes one rethink the small problems we on Earth share, does it not?”

Sarah was torn from her thoughts by General Kwan, who had stepped up beside her without her noticing. Sarah looked from the general to the complex below.

“Sometimes we create those problems for lack of something better to do, it seems.”

“Well put, Lieutenant. You and I are the same sort of soldier, I believe. Someday maybe my superiors will allow me access to their thinking about why this project could not take a more cautious approach and a time frame more amenable to safety. I have lost many good men who wanted nothing more than to ride a rocket into space.”

“Well, we won’t find out anything they need to know up here,” Sarah said, as she spied Will Mendenhall bouncing toward her. “I believe my escort is here, General. Would you care to join us?”

“It would be an honor.”

Will bounded to a stop and gestured toward the slope.

“We’re rigging safety lines so we can have handholds on the way down. I didn’t think it would be such a hot idea sliding down on our asses.”

Sarah hit Mendenhall on the shoulder.

“Always thinking of the easy way to do things.”

“Hell, I thought that was why everyone was so hot for me to come along on this little picnic,” Will said, looking from Sarah to the general. “That is one nice environment suit, General,” he said. He returned his gaze to Sarah. “Now why does NASA insist on white-colored space suits where if you fell down no one could see you, while the Chinese use red ones that you can see from fifty miles off?”

Sara rolled her eyes and eased past Mendenhall.

“You’ll have to excuse the lieutenant, General. He’s been bitching ever since he volunteered for this.”

“Volunteered?” Mendenhall protested. He turned to look at Kwan. “That’s our army’s euphemism for kidnapped.”

The general laughed as he turned to follow Sarah.

“In our army also, Lieutenant.”

As they approached the twenty secured ropes, Sarah stepped up to Sergeant Andrews, the man she had chosen to command the rest of the Green Berets. He was conferring with the Chinese soldiers who would be a part of his team for the initial descent into the crater.

“Language barrier?” Sarah asked the sergeant.

“Surprisingly, none at all,” Andrews answered. He slung his weapon over his shoulder. “It seems they picked troops with English-language training. Maybe they knew something we didn’t, huh, Lieutenant.” He reached down and took one of the secured ropes into his gloved hands.

Sarah didn’t answer. She knew the sergeant was more right than he would ever know.

The sergeant raised his right hand and then lowered it. At the same moment three other Americans and five Chinese soldiers eased themselves off the edge of the crater, proceeding hand over hand down the treacherous slope.

Sarah took the time to push a small button on the left side of her helmet. A third visor slid down and covered the clear one she had been using. Will followed suit. Sarah immediately saw the difference as she used the Optical Range Enhancer for the first time. The ORE was designed like a set of binoculars, only it had one solid lens instead of two. Sarah shook her head as she became a little dizzy using it for the first time. Nonetheless, a better picture emerged than before. The damage to the bunker system was more extensive that she had first thought. The material the bunkers were made of looked more like Styrofoam than anything else. She figured the walls and roofs of the buildings were plastic of a type she could not imagine.

“Look,” Will said, touching Sarah’s arm through her suit.

Sarah looked down to where Will was pointing. They were outside the bunker system and had been uncovered by the mineral’s detonation. She counted sixteen skeletons, some half buried, others scoured clean of lunar dust. None of them wore space suits.

“Another mystery,” General Kwan said as he looked through his own amazing piece of equipment. It was a boxlike device that was actually a camera. The general placed his entire visor into the slot in the back and saw a digitally enhanced view of whatever he was looking at. “Why would these… these persons be caught out in the airless environment?”

“I have a feeling it will take more than one trip to the Moon to find out exactly what the hell happened here. A buried bunker complex, a crashed warship, bodies everywhere? Something happened here that we may never understand,” Sarah said. She switched her view to Sergeant Andrews and his team. They were nearing the bottom.

General Kwan lowered his viewing device and ordered the remaining men to take up covering stations at the crater’s rim.

“Why didn’t I think of that,” Sarah said angrily.

“Don’t feel bad, Lieutenant. I failed to think of it until I saw those bodies down there,” the general said, and made sure the men were placed accordingly. “Sergeant Andrews, please cover this northern area on your first walkthrough. That will be the extent over which we can give you covering fire.”

Sarah looked at General Kwan, expecting him to justify his dire warning to the sergeant, but he just looked at her, explaining nothing. She looked at Will and he frowned, not liking the feeling he was getting as the men on the ropes neared the bottom of the crater.

“Yes, sir. Northern area only,” Andrews said. He allowed the rope to fall free of his hands and jumped the last two feet to the crater’s floor. “I will send two men at a time into the buildings with roofs. The rest will cover from the door and in open sight of the rim. That way no one is out of view except for the entrance team, and we will cover them.”

“Excellent, Sergeant.”

Sarah watched as the rest of the first team hit the bottom. They all removed their weapons from their backs and divided up into two-man teams.

Sarah couldn’t help but get nervous as the leading two men entered the first of what had apparently once been underground bunkers.

“Well, we didn’t get dressed up for nothing.”

Both General Kwan and Sarah looked over at Will Mendenhall, who was checking his own weapon and making sure the air cylinder was charged.

“I’m in favor of getting this done and seeing if the Altair can get us the hell back to smog- and traffic-choked freeways.”

Over the small rise and a thousand yards north, Captain Philippe Jarneux studied what they had uncovered. He could tell that the ships had impacted with the Moon at very high velocity. He had seen aircraft impact craters many times in his flying days, but never had he seen anything so utterly buried by a blunt-force, high-velocity impact. Still, it was a tribute to whoever designed the craft that the bulk of it had not been obliterated.

Jarneux, after examining the saucer, stood on an exposed superstructure of the second massive warship. They had found evidence of another turret forward of the exposed section. He wondered if there had been still more aft of where he was standing. The men of the ESA expedition seemed to relish their work uncovering such a prize. Whatever powered the great ship and her weapons systems would fit nicely into the ESA plans for uncovering the wealth of technology they had come for. As he looked at the three-barreled turret, he saw the two surviving six-foot-diameter crystals at their mouths. The crystals alone would be worth a ton of diamonds back on Earth.

“Captain, we have uncovered something you may want to look at,” one of his men said over the radio link.

Jarneux jumped easily from the exposed superstructure and saw the man who had spoken. He was waving and was about thirty feet away from the leading edge of the crashed ship. Jarneux hopped the twenty yards to the group of two men, who had uncovered something shiny and oblong. He stopped and looked down to see a cylinder. It was covered in a strange swirling design and looked to be made out of something resembling copper. It was fifteen feet long and half again as wide. Its oblong shape tapered at both ends. Jarneux saw thirty or so smashed and cracked lights on the surface and what looked like a small television screen in the center. There was a large gash running the entire length of the object, and it appeared to have been destroyed during or soon after the impact of the two ships.

“A container of some kind?” Jarneux asked aloud.

“Maybe, or maybe it’s a shell for one of those weapons,” the man on his knees said.

Jarneux looked from the copper cylinder back to the raised third gun of the turret over their heads.

“I don’t think so, it’s far too big, and I believe the other is some form of light weapon. This is something entirely different. Do you have your digital camera?”

“Yes, sir,” the man standing said. He reached for a large pouch on his belt and brought out a small portable digital camcorder. He pointed it at the cylinder and started filming.

Suddenly an aperture opened and a small antenna-like device popped free of the pod. It started spinning rapidly, like a turning radar dish. It stopped and then started again. A few sparks shot out of the damaged section of the cylinder, but then stopped. Several of the lights flashed on and off. The man with the camera stopped filming and stepped back. He lowered the camera and at the same moment the small dish antenna stopped turning.

Jarneux looked from the copper cylinder to the man holding the camera. The thought struck him that the device inside the copper pod had been activated when it detected the digital device filming it.

“Aim the camera at the cylinder and push the record button,” he said. He stepped closer to the copper pod and lifted the man who was kneeling there to his feet.

As the second man complied, the dish antenna started turning once more. It stopped, sparked, and started again.

“Stop. That is sufficient,” Jarneux said, as he backed away a step.

The three men stared at the dish as it continued to turn.

“Have you stopped filming?” the captain asked.

“Yes, sir,” the man said, worry tinting his voice.

At that moment the dish stopped turning and it seemed to have come to a standstill with the open face toward the man with the camera.

“Move the camera to the left,” Jarneux said, watching the cylinder closely.

The second man moved the camera and the dish moved with it. It stopped when the man’s arm ceased moving.

“It’s tracking the digital output of the camera,” Jarneux said as he backed away from the cylinder. He reached for his left wrist and switched frequencies on his shortwave, utilizing the digital feature of his COM unit instead of the short-range radio of his man-to-man communication. He caught himself as he realized the digital output would be the same as the camera. He grimaced at the thought that he had almost made a mistake with this unknown device.

As he thought this, all three men jumped. The cylinder cracked open about a foot with an explosive force that shocked them and made one of the men fall backward. As the captain watched in fascination, a long, three-rod assembly popped free. It was about eight feet in length and unfolded before their eyes between the top of the cylinder and the bottom. Then they watched as the thing that resembled a crane’s tower slowly lay down in the lunar dust.

“It’s damaged, whatever it is. It must have-”

“Captain, look,” the man who had fallen said, his eyes fixed on the appendage.

Jarneux was speechless as he saw the very end of the arm open up and the three large fingers unfold, tick once, and come to a stop. They were looking at a hand large enough to cover their entire helmeted heads.

“My God, what the hell is this thing?” Jarneux asked aloud.

Suddenly, three feet away and without making a sound, two copper cylinders exploded outward from the dust. Their lids immediately flew open, and to the terror of the three men they weren’t damaged like the first. As they watched in fascination, first one and then the other device unfolded itself from its egglike cylinder. They rose into the air. The legs made fast their footing and then the torso started to expand. The arms unfolded from the main trunk, and the head slowly rose from a hiding place deep inside the shiny metal structure.

Jarneux watched as the two manlike robots rose into the air. They were at least twenty feet in height and looked as if they were made of chromed steel. He saw the inner workings through the riblike protection, with gears and cogs turning, and he suspected that if he could hear them they would have a mechanical or loud turbinelike whine as they activated and gained power. He saw a series of glasslike appendages pop free on their backs, briefly shining in the daylight. They reflected like glass and Jarneux realized that the plates were solar panels, rapidly collecting energy. The panels sank back into the bodies of the mechanical giants and were covered by what looked like shoulder blades. The two mammoth beasts stood stock-still as first one and then the other started turning their heads, examining their surroundings.

Jarneux eased his right hand over to his left wrist and decided he had to risk communication with the Shackleton team.

“To anyone listening, this is Jarneux. We have uncovered something mechanical at the first site. I believe they are hostile.”

The closest mechanism moved its head toward Jarneux, who took both of his companions by the arms and started pulling them backward.

They watched as the devices stood their ground. The heads swiveled and looked at the three men, then turned and continued to scan the area. The giants stood with massive legs spread and arms half turned up at the elbow. Their construction design was a steel rod system that looked as if it could take serious punishment. Their electrical systems were buried deep inside the cagelike rods, like the life-giving veins of a living creature. They could see no discernible weaponry on the structures, but the powerful claws and thick limbs suggested that they didn’t need any weapons other than their mechanized hands.

“My God!” a voice said through their COM system.

Jarneux slowly turned and saw the rest of his team as they stood on the superstructure of the downed spaceship. They were staring at the amazing sight in front of them and were frozen in awe at the two mechanical giants. The captain raised his right hand, intimating that the men should not move or make any threatening gestures. The two robots remained still. They were producing a small vibration that the men could feel through their thick boots. The robot on the left turned slightly and they saw a parabolic dish pop free from the shoulder area. It immediately started turning. The men felt a slight pressure in their ears as a sound wave passed through their helmets and into their heads. The dish stopped turning and folded back into the shoulder. The robot remained still after that.

“Attention, we will slowly start making our way to the crater,” said Jarneux. We will not fire unless attacked. I want everyone to be clear on that. Now slowly turn and start walking.”

As the six men on the superstructure and the three below on the lunar surface turned, they stopped dead in their tracks. They were face-to-face with a third mechanical giant. It stood just thirty feet south of the crash site and was silently watching the scene in front of it. Every man saw the beast stand like a predator eyeing its prey. Jarneux realized then that the first two mechanisms had been waiting for the third to block their retreat. They were surrounded. The three menacing mechanicians just stared at the nine survivors of the ESA LEM Astral. The machines were not moving, but looked aggressive nonetheless. The colonel once more made sure his frequency was correct.

“Shackleton team, this is Captain Jarneux. We are about to be attacked by a mechanical force of unknown origin. We will attempt to escape and join-”

At that moment the third giant sprang into motion. It took six long strides and slapped the first man it came to off the superstructure of the crashed ship. It hit the man so hard that his helmet was ripped from his head. His body flew off through the Moon’s light gravity. The men all broke as one, each one of them jumping and bounding away.

Jarneux, instead of running, pushed his two companions away and removed his weapon from his back. He sighted his rifle on the first robot on his left and fired his weapon on full automatic. The ESA weapon used a combustible mix of gas and gunpowder that sent an explosive. 50 caliber round out at supersonic speed. The round would explode on contact. Several of the explosive shells hit the first robot in the chest, making it take three large steps backward, but then it righted itself and followed its companion forward. Jarneux aimed at the head area of the same beast and fired another long stream of rounds into the airless void. They struck its thick neck and face, but it kept coming on, shrugging the powerful rounds off as if they were mere blows from the captain’s fists.

“All personnel fall back, fall back to the crater,” he yelled as he fired again at the oncoming menace.

The next set of rounds exploded at the giant’s feet, taking out large chunks of Moon dust. The void in the surface tripped up the mechanical giant and it staggered, falling face-first into the dust. The captain aimed at the second robot, which had veered to its left in an attempt to strike at the men above. As he aimed, he was grabbed from behind by the third giant. Jarneux was raised to a height at which he was face-to-face with the thing. The captain could see the inner workings of the beast. Its brain looked like a turning gyroscope deep inside its head. He tried his best to get the rifle aimed, but found that his arm had been broken when the robot had picked him up from the surface. Several of his men had stopped in midflight to turn and fire at the giant, but their rounds were just as useless as Jarneux’s had been.

Jarneux looked deep into the mechanical beast’s red, glowing eyes. He saw the thickness of the glass lens and the brightness of the programming behind it. The orb glowed from the deep interior, and he knew that this thing had been programmed many millions of years ago to kill anything it encountered. This unthinking giant was man’s worst nightmare come true-a beast that wouldn’t stop until its programmed goals had been fulfilled. The damnable things had lain in wait for millions upon millions of years for just this opportunity.

As it brought Jarneux forward, the giant seemed to be studying him. It appeared to realize something as it tilted its large steel-encased head. It was as if it were scanning him to confirm his face, body, or uniform.

The French captain became angry at his obvious fate and lashed out at the glowing right eye with his good arm. The gloved fist struck the beast and it didn’t even flinch. It remained still and staring. Jarneux struck it again. This time the giant started to squeeze the small human. The captain felt his ribs collapse first and then a scream that only he could hear burst out of his lungs as the giant brought him closer to its eyes.

The last thing Jarneux saw was what appeared to be a satisfied glint in the red eyes. Then he realized that it was his own reflection he was seeing, and that it was wide-eyed and screaming.

Sarah watched the men below as they entered the first structure. It was covered by a roof, so she tensed when the two-man team entered.

As she watched, her COM system sprang to life and the voice of the French colonel burst through her speakers in her helmet. She jumped at the loudness of the transmission.

“Did you understand that?” she asked, turning to face General Kwan and Will Mendenhall.

“Something about an attack,” Will said, as he turned and looked to the north, where they had left the first team. “Think it’s the Russians?” he asked.

“No, the Russians are a day out. And besides, they’re a part of the Arizona treaty and are acceptable to Case Blue. And-”

The two men-Mendenhall and Kwan-looked at Sarah when she stopped talking. She bit her lip, knowing she had said too much, but that was something she would have to answer for later. Right now she knew she had an unseen problem on her hands.

“You men, cover the north. We may have an unknown element breaking through the first team perimeter.”

Sarah swallowed as she watched the men covering the crater floor bring their weapons to bear in the direction of the crashed warship. Will Mendenhall rechecked his kinetic weapon and watched with wide eyes. The general went to one knee and aimed his own shorter version of the same rifle at a spot that covered the top of the small ridgeline.

“All of a sudden this place has gotten damn crowded. Who else could be here on the Moon that we don’t know about?” Mendenhall asked.

Sarah was breathing way too hard. She had to force herself to calm down as she scanned the area to the north.

“Do you feel it?” she asked, without looking at the two men on either side of her.

“Yes, something is coming this way,” Kwan said as he sighted his weapon.

“Jesus, what is it?” Will asked. He too went to one knee for a steadier aim.

As they all watched, the advance team inside the crater babbled excitedly about something, but no one was listening. Sarah moved her weight from one foot to the other as she strained her eyes to see what was coming at them. That was when the first few ESA team members broke from the ridge, bounding and hopping, using the light gravity to speed away from something. Sarah counted only three, plus one straggler.

“Jesus,” she mumbled.

“Easy men, easy,” General Kwan said. “Aim carefully and cover these men.”

As they watched the men scramble toward them they all froze. That was when the first of the three giants made its appearance. Several of the men who were supposed to be covering the retreating ESA men stood and lowered their weapons when they saw what was chasing the men.

“Remain in your positions!” Kwan called out.

The mechanical giants stopped and surveyed the situation along the rim of the crater. They seemed to be scanning for threats. The general saw what amounted to giant Erector Sets standing and looking down on the smaller humans they confronted.

The first of the ESA men stumbled and fell three feet in front of Sarah, Mendenhall, and Kwan. She stepped forward and pulled the man encased in his bulky suit upward.

“Where’s Captain Jarneux?” she asked.

“Dead. We’re all that’s left. These things came from the wreckage near the downed craft. They’re killers.”

Sarah pushed the man to the side just as General Kwan opened fire from his kneeling position. Sarah flinched as the first kinetic rounds left the barrels of several men at once. The hardened rounds struck the metal monsters in several places and the men who fired saw their spiked bulletlike bolts bounce off, causing no discernible damage.

“We may be outgunned here,” Will said. He fired a burst of three rounds toward the head of the leading robot. The rounds struck, forcing the giant’s head back. It shook off the assault and started forward again, with the other two also moving.

As General Kwan and the others opened up with a withering fire at the oncoming assault, Sarah reached took the general by the shoulder. He finally looked at her.

“I think we’d better get to cover,” she said.

The general looked around and saw that there was only one place to go.

“Yes, that is a good suggestion, Lieutenant,” Kwan answered, and turned Sarah around to face the open crater of Shackleton. “Lead the way.”

Sarah didn’t hesitate, nor did she take one of the dangling ropes. She hopped into the crater and started sliding down its steep incline, falling faster and faster as the others started sliding down the edges behind her.

Will Mendenhall and General Kwan continued to fire their kinetic rounds at the three brutes coming straight at them on a run. When they saw that no damage was being inflicted, they turned and leaped into the dark void of the crater.

After several commands were shouted through their COM systems, the ground team looked up and saw a terrifying sight. They had progressed down the dangerous and very steep slope being cautious for safety reasons, but now they were witnessing a full-fledged retreat from the crater’s rim. Men in bulky suits were sliding on their backs and even a few on their stomachs. Some were in danger of ripping the vital life-sustaining material of their suits as they crashed, crawled, and hopped down the crater’s side. The men had started running from the confined spaces of the bunkers when they all came to a dead stop as the first of the giant robots made its appearance at the rim. The men froze as they saw for the first time what had forced the men to flee.

The men were in desperate flight to get to cover as the first of the three robots jumped into the crater. It didn’t hit the slope on its way down. It landed on Shackleton’s floor well ahead of the retreating astronauts.