Legacy

17

The mine forces learned the hard way that they had failed to destroy one of the mortar tubes. Jack, Everett, Sebastian, and the scientists ran from the blockhouse into a murderous crossfire. An erratic defense had been mounted, but Jack was sure that whoever was firing on them was going to concentrate on one pocket of resistance at a time.

“I don’t see ’em, Jack,” Everett called out. He dared to raise his head. Just as he ducked back, a series of bullets stitched the hardened lava of the ridge, sending chips flying in all directions.

Collins turned slightly to make sure the five scientists were keeping low. He knew he had to get them away from the German blockhouse, which was an easy target for the mortar team.

“Well, we sure as hell can’t stay here. Whoever it is has the advantage of an elevated position,” Jack said. He rose and fired toward the sound of the mortar tube discharging. He ducked back. “Sebastian, we have to get a fire team organized and do it fast.”

“I have men over in the next series of buildings, assuming they’re still alive.”

Before Jack could say more, the German commando turned and ran to the right in search of men he could corral.

“Mr. Everett, we have to ditch these guys,” Jack said, nodding toward Niles and the others.

Charlie Ellenshaw crawled forward with his M-16 and looked straight at Jack.

“I heard that, Colonel. You’re not leaving me with these guys.”

“Yes I am, Charlie. You’re going to keep them together and defend them with your little gun-that’s an order.”

Ellenshaw frowned and then ducked his head when gunfire erupted, closer than before.

“Whoever these assholes are, they’re aggressive,” Everett said. He popped up and returned fire. “Charlie, get your ass back to Niles. Get them to the far side of the blockhouse and hunker down low along the strongest part-that would be its base. Do not go inside,” Everett said. “We’ll cover you the best we can.”

Ellenshaw finally nodded.

“Ready, Jack?” Everett shouted.

Collins nodded.

As one, Jack and Carl rose up and started firing. To their shock they saw ten men running at them, firing their weapons. They had gotten far closer than either man realized before they made up their makeshift plan for getting Niles and the others to safety. Jack knew immediately that their attackers would be on them soon. Still, he and Carl placed a withering fire on the ten men as they zigzagged through the ancient colony buildings. As Everett’s M-16 hammered on an empty receiver, Collins knew that was it. As he aimed at the five men who were only six feet from their hidden position, three of them fell almost immediately. Not waiting for another miracle, Jack opened up on the last two. He missed the second as the man screamed and made the last push for their position. As Collins aimed, the man suddenly straightened and fell to the left, unmoving. Jack turned and slid back down under cover.

“Damn, that guy is downright handy,” Everett said, slamming another thirty-round magazine into his weapon.

Collins looked around and saw Vietnamese Private Tram as he quickly slipped another magazine into the old M-14. He looked around and pointed at Jack and Everett, then moved to another position.

“Yeah, I’d pick him for my kickball team any day,” Jack said, as a mortar round landed fifty yards to their front.

“These guys are serious, Jack,” Carl said, joining them.

The gallery became deathly silent except for the men firing sporadically from various defensive positions. Soon even these shooters stopped and listened.

“Colonel Collins, I assume I have your attention.”

Jack looked over at Carl and raised his brows.

“If it’s the cops, I’m going to be seriously pissed off,” he said, trying his best to figure out who was speaking through the bullhorn. The voice echoed off the giant cavern walls that housed the buried colony.

“You could have called me on your cell phone if that’s all you wanted,” Collins yelled, at the same time looking to make sure that Ellenshaw had the others hidden as best he could. Then he silently cursed as he saw the scientists do exactly what he had ordered them not to do-turn and enter the blockhouse once more. “You know, after this we’re going to have to get a new director, because I’m going to kill this one!”

Everett turned and saw what Jack was talking about. He cursed as well.

“Colonel, a few well-chosen words and a small exchange, and then we will leave you to your task here. We wish you well in your endeavors.”

“What the hell is this?” Everett whispered.

“You have the stage, for the moment at least,” Collins called out over the lip of the ancient lava flow.

“We want a few items from that blockhouse, and then we will leave you to do your country’s dirty business.”

“What could be in there that you would want?”

“Colonel, I have heard of you, and because of your duty in Iraq and Afghanistan you have most assuredly heard of me. I am Azim Quaida.”

Jack looked at Everett and shook his head. Carl also knew the name also knew that the man speaking was a formidable commander of men-especially when he didn’t care who lived or died.

“I thought you had turned to the money end of your business,” Jack called out. “Made crazy new friends in California-good, honest, hardworking church folk.”

“Ah, the Reverend Rawlins. He and I had a small falling-out. As did I and an old friend of yours. You can say I saved you the trouble of tracking down and killing James McCabe.”

Jack took a deep breath and hoped that Sebastian was utilizing this break to get a fix on the mortar.

“Okay, for that I’m grateful, enough so that if you turn around and leave right now, I promise that we’ll finish our business another day. What do you say, Mechanic?”

There was a momentary silence as Jack’s insult sank into the Saudi’s thoughts.

“Colonel, to show you I have more cards than you do in this game, I have someone who would like to speak to you.”

Jack closed his eyes and cursed himself. He knew without thinking what the Mechanic was referring to.

“Jack, if you trade me for anything in this gallery, I’ll shoot you myself!”

“Damn it,” Collins said. He finally looked up at Everett, who slid down the lava wall next to the colonel as he recognized Alice’s voice.

“This is a brave if difficult woman, Colonel. It would be a shame for her to die this day. Even though she is a woman who needs to be beaten on a regular basis, I’m sure she’s dear to someone. Come and take this black-hearted woman from my hands.”

“That son of a bitch doesn’t know the half of it,” Jack said, Alice being one of the most difficult women he had ever known. He closed his eyes to think. He partially raised his head and found Tram. He signaled to the sniper by raising his chin in a quick motion. Tram knew immediately what the colonel wanted to know. The small private shook his head, telling Jack that he did not have a shot. Collins turned back.

“The senator, is he alive?” Jack asked, fighting for time on Sebastian’s behalf.

There was no answer.

“Damn it, Sebastian, find them,” he said beneath his breath.

“Colonel, no more talk. I see your rather large friend, who I recognize from Germany. Tell him to stop or you can collect Mrs. Hamilton at the bottom of this rise.”

Jack assumed Sebastian had heard.

“All right, what do you want?”

“Just five of the weapons inside the blockhouse. Then you can have Mrs. Hamilton and we’ll leave. That is as simple as it can get, Colonel.”

“Deal.”

Everett looked at Jack and slowly nodded his head. It was an exchange that was well worth it.

“Good, Colonel, good. Now I am going to send Mrs. Hamilton out in five minutes with a transponder beacon and a tracking locator. If the exchange is interfered with I will have the woman pinpointed by mortar fire. You will not find enough of her to bury.” The echo rebounded several times.

“Okay, five minutes. I will be making the exchange.”

Suddenly the strange vibration started again. None of them noticed as Collins rose and ran to the blockhouse, followed by Everett and Tram. As they entered, Jack saw the five scientists working frantically around the table.

There was a line connecting the weapon to Europa.

“I’ll speak to all of you later about the dangers of not following a field commander’s orders.”

Niles looked up with sweat running down his face. He fixed Jack with his thick glasses and nodded his head to indicate that he understood. He watched as the colonel removed five of the light weapons from the rack.

“I heard. Get Alice back, Jack, and hopefully we can have you some help soon,” Niles said. He bent back over the large tabletop just as Appleby cursed and slammed a pair of needle-nosed pliers against the wall.

“Jack, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that damn vibration has started again,” Pete said. “Europa says that it’s not geological. There’s a mechanical pattern.”

Collins nodded. His arms full of alien weaponry, he dashed through the door.

As Collins and Everett stepped out from the side of the blockhouse, the earth trembled.

“Okay, what now?” Everett asked.

That was when the roof of the giant cavern opened.

Two copper capsules fell into the center of the long dead colony.

The civil war that began more than 700 million years before was about to conclude.

Garrison Lee stumbled and almost fell as he entered Gallery Two. He heard the detonations of the mortar rounds and knew the men who had taken Alice were somewhere on the high rubble ahead of him. He also knew that the men had spread out in a semicircle and were laying down a withering fire on Jack and his men.

As he tried to catch his breath, Lee felt dizzy and started coughing. He could feel the stickiness of his own blood when he placed his hand over his mouth. He began to feel better after the coughing spell had ended. He removed the old fedora and wiped the sweat from his brow. The Ingram submachine gun was feeling quite a bit heavier than it had only minutes before. As he looked around at the hanging lights in the high-ceilinged gallery, the shooting and explosions finally stopped. He leaned against the rubble and listened, placing his hat back on his head. There was someone speaking through a bullhorn, but try as he might he couldn’t catch the words. The echo confused them and bounced them around the chamber.

Lee looked up toward the upper reaches of the rubble and saw that it would be impossible for him to climb. He shook his head in frustration and cursed his failing body. Alice was up on the precipice and there was nothing he could do about it. Garrison checked the thirty-round magazine in the Ingram for the fourth time and made a decision. He placed one boot on the rubble and carefully moved the other next to it. He felt the rubble, formed by an explosion seventy years before, shift under his weight, but still he persisted in moving his right foot up. The rocks and rubble gave way and he fell to his knees. He lay down and tried to catch his breath, finally rolling to one side and placing the Ingram’s strap over his shoulder. He rested once more and rolled onto his stomach, then forced his knees up and under him. He felt the sharp stones tear away his skin through his pants, but still he pushed.

He glanced upward with his lone eye and saw shadows moving underneath the high hanging lights. Then he heard the bullhorn again. This spurred him forward. Lee set his mouth in a straight line and cursed his dying body one more time, but still he climbed. For every five steps he managed, he would slip back three, but he had never been as determined in his life to overcome the obstacles ahead to get to Alice. She would not be joining him in that final adventure he knew he was going to take that day.

Garrison Lee dug his heels in the mountain of rubble and climbed.

Jack had just stepped from the bunker when the two large objects fell to the gallery floor. As they struck the excavated floor, he realized at that the vibration and these capsules were connected. They hummed loudly and the sound penetrated his inner ear. As he looked upward toward the ridge of debris, he saw several men running about, confused as to what trick he had possibly arranged.

“Jesus, Jack, look at that!” Everett said loudly, as the first of the copper-colored cylinders popped open along the center line.

“Oh, shit,” Collins said. He ran forward with his arms full of the ancient weapons and took cover just as the first snaking legs appeared outside the cylinder.

Sebastian, who was huddled with thirty-five men he had gathered for the assault on the mortar position, also saw the cylinders. He sensed the danger inside. He and his men opened fire on the two objects. As the onslaught of automatic weapons fire started striking the hardened cases, the first mechanical giant uncoiled from its shell and started to lift its powerful body. Sebastian and the men closest to the horrible but amazing sight heard the whir and whine of powerful turbines as they spooled upward toward full power. He saw the five-foot-wide and ten-foot-long solar cells pull free from under the back plate armor and face toward the lighting above. Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, they folded over and vanished into their protective armor. Still the whine of their powerful turbines continued to sound.

“What the hell is this now?” Sebastian said, as he aimed and opened fire at the first mechanical giant in line. He tried to focus his fire on the head and face region, where he thought his rounds would hurt the giant most. The bullets from him and the men alongside him bounced off in a shower of sparks.

The first giant rotated its head in a 360 degree circle. The eyes started glowing bright red, as bullets continued to find their mark against its steel-ribbed torso and head. The beast seemed to focus its attention on the area where Sebastian and his men had taken cover. That was when the giant began to move toward them, shaking the cavern. The second mechanical monstrosity turned and concentrated on the fire coming from the opposite side, where the Japanese, Australian, and Polish soldiers had congregated. The entire gallery was alight with tracers.

As the metal monster charged, Sebastian pulled two hand grenades from his vest. He pulled the pin on one and then on another. He used his thumbs to free the handles from the small, round grenades and threw one and then the other in the path of the fast-moving beast. As the giant came on, it placed a large three-toed foot on top of the first grenade as it rolled to a stop. Instead of ducking, Sebastian watched as it exploded. The leg and knee of the metal giant sprang upward and it fell to the left, landing on its side. After only a moment, the giant sprang back to its undamaged legs and continued forward. The second grenade detonated just to its right as it steadied itself. The explosion sent shrapnel into the torso area and ricocheted off the spinning gears and cogs inside, causing not one inch of damage. If anything, it made the beast charge faster.

A hundred yards away, Jack and Carl watched as the first giant reached Sebastian’s position. The beast slammed its giant arm and hand into the mass of men. The mechanical horror raised one hand in the air with one of the German commandos in its grasp as the others fired round after glowing round into the beast. The creature then slammed its free hand into the mass of men and brought up another soldier. It slammed the two men together and tossed them away like they were nothing more than garbage.

“We can’t stop them, Jack. We need heavier weapons,” Everett said. He rose and fired an entire magazine into the back of the giant. Then he slammed home a second magazine and emptied it into the second charging beast, causing it no more harm than the first.

Jack managed a glance upward at the ridge of rubble and saw the men up there in an exposed position. He saw Alice being pushed to the side as the men moved to take better cover, in case the mechanical wonders turned on them. Jack let the alien weaponry fall from his arms and reached for Everett’s M-16. He pulled another magazine from his belt and slammed it home. He had seen an opening and he was willing to risk the chance at evening the odds. He aimed and fired upward toward the ridgeline. He caught ten of the men as they moved toward new positions. They had exposed themselves too much and Collins expertly used a full automatic burst to bring them down. Then he tossed the M-16 back to Everett.

“Stay and cover me,” Jack said as he rushed forward in the confusion created by the attack of the machines.

Everett watched Jack sprint forward without seeking cover. He had brought up the M-16 when he saw two of the Mechanic’s men pop up only thirty feet from Collins. Before Carl could respond to the threat, several rounds echoed close by his right ear. He flinched and saw the two men fly backward as two expertly placed rounds slammed into their heads and faces. That was when Tram slammed into him from behind and took up a covering position next to him. They both started laying heavy gunfire on the upper reaches of the ridge as Jack started climbing rapidly toward the forty-foot summit. Everett reloaded and saw Jack reach for his shoulder holster as he approached a position where Everett could see several heads pop up and then disappear.

“Damn you, Jack. You’ve pulled this crap once too many times!” Everett said as he fired a three-round burst in a timed manner and hit one of the heads that had reappeared.

Tram looked to his left and nodded at the former Navy SEAL.

“I have my moments,” Carl said, and aimed and fired again.

The Vietnamese private reached out and slapped Everett’s arm. He was pointing upward at the position where he saw Jack running. That was when Carl saw why Jack was taking the chance that he was. He had seen earlier what he thought was men changing their cover positions, when in actuality he was seeing men relaying mortar rounds to the soldiers firing them. That was where Jack was heading at full speed. Everett realized that not only could he take out the mortar crew, but he could turn the heavy weapon on the monstrosities that were attacking them. That was their only hope and Jack was out to kill two birds with one stone.

“Can you handle things here? I think the colonel needs help,” he called to Tram, who only nodded his head and fired twice more with the M-14.

Everett stood and looked for the briefest of moments as the second mechanical robot reached the far firing line of Japanese, Polish, and Australian soldiers. It was at that moment that the men scattered to create more targets for the beast, as it struck their defensive position. All semblance of a fight between them and the terrorist element had vanished as they took on two nightmares from another time and place. Several men tossed hand grenades over their shoulders as they sprinted ahead of the mechanicians.

Everett turned and sprinted after Jack.

Collins pulled his nine-millimeter and hit two men as they rose to shoot at him. He had caught them by surprise and his bullets struck both in the chest.

As Everett watched, his vision bouncing as bad as his feet over the rough rise of stone, he saw one of the men rise once more and fire at Collins’s back. He saw Jack stagger and go down.

“Shit!” Everett said, as a round from Tram struck the badly wounded man and dropped him. But the saving shot had come too late for Jack. Everett saw another man rise up where Collins had disappeared after hitting the rocks. Carl fired from the hips and then several more rounds from Tram struck the terrorist simultaneously, dropping him cold.

Carl saw Jack rise once more, stagger forward and then fall. For Everett, all semblance of reality was vanishing fast as he realized Jack was done for.

Niles rubbed a hand over his balding head. He had just returned from outside, where he had witnessed the new problem they were facing-he had nearly frozen at the site of the mechanical giants that were now chasing, catching, and killing the men defending the gallery. He knew these weren’t a technology of Earth origin, so he had to believe they had been left here to either kill the ancient travelers, or they had been left here by those same Visitors, though for what reason Niles didn’t know.

Appleby slammed his hand down on the alien weapons in the vise grips. He was frustrated when they couldn’t get the coolant tube to open. As he grew more and more frustrated, it was nothing compared to what Pete, Dubois, and Ellenshaw were feeling as they tried desperately to figure out where McCabe and possibly the Germans had failed in making one of the weapons operational.

“Look, I’m telling you based on the damaged weapons we’ve seen in here that they all overheated, so it must be the liquid hydrogen they were using. Either it was not enough, or our coolant just doesn’t work with their technology,” Dubois said as he looked angrily at Ellenshaw and Golding.

“I can’t believe that. No matter where these beings came from, the liquid nitrogen would still be on their periodic table. It would be just as cold on their world as ours. It’s not the coolant but the mineral!” Ellenshaw said forcibly, as Pete nodded his head in agreement.

“You’re a freaking cryptozoologist,” the MIT professor said to Charlie. He turned and glared at Pete. “And you’re a computer expert. I think I know who has a degree of confidence here when it comes to physics, and it’s not you two. The coolant is failing!”

“Oh, so we’re tossing degrees in everyone’s face now,” Ellenshaw said as he took a menacing step toward the much smaller Dubois. Pete stepped between the two men and adjusted his glasses.

“May I remind you two that we have men dying out there?”

Charlie nodded and angrily turned away.

“Look, I agree with Charlie here. If you look in the power pack-” Pete held up the large magazine-like power source for the light weapon. “-you can see that McCabe and his scientists, and possibly the Germans also, ground up the mineral, particulate matter and all. Look here. See that? It was so hot that heat turned it to solid carbon. We have to break the mineral down into its base form, separating the energy source.” This time Golding held up a small meteorite that had been stored inside a large airtight container. “This strange metal here, see the gold and silverish flecks? We have to break that free from the particulate matter. That way the carbon won’t overheat the energy pack, causing the nitrogen not to work. It’s our only chance.”

“How do you suggest we mill it in time? As you said, we have men dying out there,” Dubois countered.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Ellenshaw said. He snatched the small meteorite from Pete’s hand and ran to the worktable. He rummaged through the mess of tools there and found what he was looking for. “You guys at MIT spend too damn much time in the lab. You need to get out more,” he said as he brought a hammer high into the air and smashed it down on the meteorite. The small rock shattered. Pete started scrambling on the floor to pick up some of the loose debris. Charlie brought the hammer up again and smashed down with all his strength.

“Okay, I see your point,” Dubois said. He too started picking up the metal as it was freed from the rock. “We don’t have time to chip away the rest of the particulate.”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as the percentage of heavy metal is far greater than the percentage of rock. That will allow the nitrogen to cool it better and create the chain reaction. The only problem is, in order to discharge the energy buildup, we have to continuously fire the damn thing or it will blow. That’s what we don’t have the time to figure out,” Ellenshaw said. He grabbed another meteorite and started slamming the hammer into it.

“I think I’d better get out of the lab more often,” the MIT professor said.

Niles finally found the access tube for the liquid nitrogen.

“The nitrogen works in two different ways with this weapon,” he said. “It’s introduced into the power pack as the liquid active agent, and this little induction pump here forces oxygen, or air, into the magazine, thus creating the chain reaction we witnessed on the Moon. Once the buildup is achieved, we only have… hell, I don’t know how long we have, but we had better target something and shoot, or the damn thing will blow up in our hands.”

“I see,” Appleby said, finally calming down as the noise of Charlie’s hammering echoed inside the blockhouse.

“Or I should say Charlie has only so long to discharge the weapon,” Niles finished.

Ellenshaw stopped a hammer blow in midair and looked at Niles with a questioning look on his face.

“Well, you’re the one who always wants to shoot something. Here’s your chance,” Niles said and tossed Pete the empty power magazine.

“Great,” Ellenshaw said. He slammed the hammer down one last time, freeing the mineral that would either save them or blow the entire gallery into oblivion.

Either way, the battle for Columbus would soon be coming to an end.

As she bounced into the first room she came to, Sarah saw she had entered an area that had offered the visitors of millions of years before a place to suit up into their environment clothing. There was an airlock, which had been destroyed by the explosion created by the Beatle, and then a large connecting room that looked as if it ran off to connect with labs and other parts of the buried complex. As she watched, a soldier bumped into her. She turned and saw General Kwan as he unloaded a full magazine of bolt-sized kinetic rounds at one of the mechanical giants. She pulled him deeper inside the room with no roof. As she did she saw one of the men, a Chinese soldier, go flying past them more than thirty feet in the air. Her eyes followed him until he vanished over the exposed roof of the bunker. She kept pulling at Kwan as he reloaded a weapon that was the equivalent of throwing rocks at a tank. Sarah let go for as long as it took to activate her COM system.

“Will, get as many of the men together as you can and get them into the bunker any way possible. Maybe we can find a level here that these things can’t squeeze into.”

There was no answer for the longest time. She once more took General Kwan by the oxygen pack and pulled him along. She had only gone a few feet when a giant hand crashed down through the strange composite material and crushed the wall nearest them. She looked up as she fell and saw the robot staring down at her and Kwan. They were had. The thing towered over them in the silent vacuum of the Moon’s atmosphere. She saw that it had no mouth, no ears, and a head that looked like some kind of buffed or stainless steel. The red eyes were like quartz crystals. It had no numbers or distinguishing marks. The gears inside its body spun, stopped, and spun some more. There were pulsating bladders protected by a series of giant metallic ribs separated by only inches. Even if they had ground-to-air missiles, she didn’t know if anything like the BGM-71 TOW system could penetrate the strange alien armor. These things were built to survive, and had done so on this hostile rock for 700 million years. As she tried to get up, the metal beast raised its steel-entwined arm into the air and leaned over the high wall of the first building. Kwan kept firing, aiming for the eyes, as he was thinking that maybe they were some sort of information-gathering device. To Sarah’s way of thinking this was right, because robots certainly didn’t need eyes for aesthetic purposes. She knew that she and the general were about to be smashed to pieces, but at that moment several dozen kinetic rounds slammed into the steel and threw the robot off balance.

Sarah saw this and pulled on Kwan harder. This time the general didn’t need much convincing. They both turned and struggled down a not too wide hallway, one that wasn’t accommodating for their bulky suits, and made their way deeper into the alien complex. As she did, she heard Will Mendenhall ordering the survivors of the attack inside from someplace where they had attacked the first robot. Thus far she didn’t know the disposition of anyone.

Sarah saw a smaller room off to her right and made for it, closely followed by the general. As Sarah turned she saw through the open roof the robot searching for the small humans who had escaped it. Then something caught its attention and it moved off, smashing the remaining roof off a building further down. As Sarah frantically looked around, trying to find something they could use to fight back with, someone’s COM system opened up and she heard a man scream. It was one of her own. She also heard Mendenhall directing fire from somewhere. Sarah had never felt so helpless in her life. The general turned and faced her. Inside his helmet she could see a determined look on his face.

“We have to get to the landing vehicles and leave the Moon. We can do no good here. The mission is over.”

Sarah looked at him with shock- All of this to turn and run? she thought.

“We have to bring something back,” she protested.

“Listen to me. We have the coordinates for the downed ship. That’s more than we ever hoped to get. That is heavy weaponry, Lieutenant. We have found what we came for, but if we don’t get off the Moon it will be for nothing. We cannot fight these things. We don’t have the firepower.”

Sarah saw the general’s point. If they remained, no one would ever know about the warship in the dust, and no one would know what they needed to fight these things.

“Okay, I’ll agree that we have to get off the moon, but how the hell are we going to get past these things?” she countered.

“That, Lieutenant McIntire, is the problem we face.”

“How far is your LEM?” she asked. She felt a sharp vibration as one of the two creatures struck somewhere close by. As she ducked, she saw several of the boltlike rounds rip into the wall opposite of their position. She knew then that they still had men close by.

“That is what I was thinking. Our lander is actually closer, as you Americans are fond of saying, as the crow flies. If we follow the valley just to the left of Shackleton, on the east side, we would have cover all the way to Magnificent Dragon. If I could get half of the men into that small valley and follow the terrain, not exposing ourselves to these creatures, we may make it all the way to our LEM. If we don’t use the radio, we have a chance; I don’t think they can track us without the use of electronic signals.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I believe that’s how they hunt. They were probably sent here seeking out human life to destroy. As soon as Mendenhall used his radio rather than his suit-to-suit COM, one of those things attacked.”

“Well, that’s one theory, and for now I’ll accept it, Lieutenant. So now the question is, how do we communicate?”

“Mendenhall to McIntire, where are you?” the voice came over the radio.

Sarah hit her COM switch. “We’re in the first set of buildings on the west side. We have a-” Sarah realized too late that she was doing exactly what she had said they couldn’t do. Instead of the line-of-sight transmission of a suit-to-suit call, Will had used his radio COM system to contact her. The next sound she heard coming through Will’s system was him shooting and she looked up just as hundreds of kinetic rounds flew upward from somewhere to her right.

“Damn!” the general said. “Listen, to all who can hear my voice,” he said, taking a chance on using the radio. “Get to the center of this complex. We’ll meet there. Now move!”

Kwan angled out of the small room and chanced the hallway that had no roof. Sarah followed and saw one of the metal monsters as it disappeared over the high wall of the building they were in.

“Look!” Sarah said, hitting Kwan of the back. They both stopped, one running into the other as they saw the ramp leading down. At that moment, several men appeared ahead of her. She saw a white-colored NASA suit in the lead. It was Mendenhall and he had several American, European, and Chinese troops with them.

“Look out,” Kwan shouted, as a giant three-fingered hand smashed through the wall and knocked Will over. Instead of grabbing Will it grabbed the next man in line. Sarah’s eyes widened as she recognized Sergeant Demarest, one of the older Green Berets on the mission. He was lifted out of the bunker and they all watched helplessly as Demarest and the arm vanished. Sarah thanked God the sergeant’s COM system was off.

Kwan waved the men ahead of him, indicating that they should go forward down the large ramp that angled downward at a 30 degree angle. He just hoped there were no more nasty surprises waiting for them at the bottom. As the men went, Sarah and the general followed, not knowing if they had found a covered haven beneath the bunker or if they had just found another way to hell.

As they continued heading down into the bowels of the ancient complex, Sarah placed her hand on the strange plasticlike wall. She stopped and felt the movement of the monstrosities above. It felt as though they were tearing the bunker system apart-perhaps trying to dig them out of the rat hole they could be heading into.

“You feel it too, yes?”

Sarah looked up and saw the general looking at her. He had stopped next to her, along with the comforting face of Will Mendenhall.

“They’ll dig and dig until they find us. It’s like their programming won’t allow them to do anything else,” she said as she lowered her gloved hand from the wall.

“I’ll tell you, whoever built them crazy bastards would have to be related to us somehow, because only our species could ever be so brutal,” Mendenhall said, shaking his head inside his helmet.

“I agree, Lieutenant Mendenhall,” Kwan said. “But I may venture to add, as long as it was beings like us that built them, it can also be counted on that those same beings can destroy them.”

“Unless, like us, they were just dumbass sons-a-bitches,” Will countered.

Kwan smiled, continuing down the ramp, following what was left of the three Moon expeditions.

“There again, you may have a point.”

As the three fell into line, the helmet lights bounced off of posters, possibly of rules and regulations, in the now familiar alien script. As Sarah looked, the posters began to look like U.S. Army bulletins on the do’s and don’ts of surviving in a hostile environment. There were depictions of space-suited men placing a finger to their helmets in a shushing gesture, possibly meaning loose lips sink ships. There were what looked like propaganda scenes on some of them, with flags, and even one that resembled the old World War I Uncle Sam pointing at the reader of the poster, as if saying, “I want you!”

“I’m getting the feeling these people just blew themselves straight to hell,” Will said as he tried to look more closely at one of the propaganda posters.

“Look at this one,” Sarah said.

Kwan and Will looked at what she was studying as the vibration from above them increased.

On a large and half-torn poster, their helmet lights revealed one very large moon, with what looked like transport ships leaving its surface. Below that was a picture of the mineral.

“Look familiar?” Sarah said, tapping the mineral.

“Looks like they may have been mining it,” Kwan said. “Is that our Moon?”

Sarah reached out and pushed the ripped corner back into place. As she did, all of their eyes widened. They saw a much smaller moon in the background of the first. Beside it was the Earth or at least it looked like the Earth. The continents weren’t in the right places.

“What the hell is this?” Mendenhall asked.

“My God, they were mining the mineral,” Sarah said, “but not from this moon. There was another moon that’s no longer there.” She reached out and slid up the other corner of the poster. That was when they saw it-another world in the far distance. This one had deep green oceans and red-colored continents.

“What planet is that?” Kwan asked.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “But our hope of finding a source of the mineral on the Moon just went right out the window.”

“All the more reason to leave this place as soon as we are able to escape our enemies-which are growing closer as we speak,” Kwan said. He turned and started down the ramp once more.

Sarah looked at Will and shook her head and then stepped into line with the general.

Mendenhall wanted to curse as he slapped at the reproduced depiction of the mined moon Ophillias.

“I don’t like this moon very much,” he said. Then she looked at the second, much larger moon. “Or that one either.”

The men ahead had halted. Sarah looked at the altimeter readout on her right sleeve. The small computer screen told her they had traveled a distance of close to a half a mile in a downward attitude. She was starting to think they would find nothing but a basement.

“General, would you and Lieutenant McIntire come up here, please?”

Sarah thought she recognized the voice of Sergeant Stanley Sampson, one of her Green Berets, as she and Kwan, followed by Mendenhall, stepped up to the first man in line. It was Sampson, and he just pointed into a room that held a number of tables along with what looked like a cafeteria serving line.

“Chow’s on,” the sergeant said, and stepped aside to allow Kwan, Sarah, and Mendenhall to go through first.

“I don’t think we want to eat here, Sergeant,” Sarah said as her light picked up a pair of bodies in the far corner of the room. There were two large cups sitting in front of a mummified man and woman. They were holding hands across the table and their missing eyes seemed to be locked on each other.

“They must have come down here to die,” Sarah said, unable to remove her eyes from the long lost couple.

“Die of what?” Mendenhall said. The couple was having the opposite effect on him as on Sarah.

General Kwan stepped forward and reached for something. Sarah flinched, hoping he wasn’t going to disturb the couple. The woman had red hair and the man black. Their hands may have been locked together for millions upon millions of years, and Sarah felt they had no right to disturb their remains. Instead, Kwan turned and tossed a small object to Sarah, who had plenty of time to catch it in the nonatmosphere. She looked at the bottle and then handed it off to Will. It was empty, but all three of their imaginations could figure out that the couple had long ago taken a way out that was more to their own choosing. Sarah wondered how they could have become so desperate.

“Sir, we found something down here,” a Frenchman said as he scrambled into the doorway.

As Sarah turned, Will handed her the small bottle and fixed his eyes in the same direction as hers. The unspoken communication was such that they both knew they didn’t want to go out that way, or any other way that involved dying on the Moon. Sarah placed a gloved hand on Will’s shoulder and then moved away back to the long ramp outside. She followed the rest of the men and that was when she saw that they had come to the end of the wide ramp. There was a double set of doors and she followed the men through them. As she stood there, Sarah couldn’t believe her eyes. Lined up as though at an Army motor pool were vehicles-eight of them, ranging from small dune-buggy-type cars to three large transports with rounded bubbled cabs. All the vehicles had oversized tires; two of them were tracked. Several also had large cranes and derricks attached. They were facing toward what she thought was a dead end, but when she examined it closer she saw that it was actually a fifty-foot-wide roll-up door, sealed against the harsh external environment.

“Look at this,” one of the ESA men said, tapping a large glass or plastic container. Inside the vessel they saw about a hundred gallons of frozen water. There was thick piping running from the tank into a large pump, and then through the metal flooring into the lunar surface. The ancient lunar explorers had discovered the very thing NASA was looking for in Shackleton Crater-water. There must be an underground supply of ice. Somehow the visitors had found a way to melt it and pump it to the surface.

“Now this is what I call a neighborhood garage-cars, water, and tools. Now all we need are two-week-old hot dogs, overpriced gas, and a Big Gulp machine.” Will smiled and walked over to the first dune-buggy-type vehicle and looked in its interior at the unfamiliar gears and levers.

Sarah stepped up behind Will and tapped him on the shoulder as she looked at the strange shifters and dials.

“Well, I hope you can drive a stick and drink your Big Gulp at the same time, Mr. Wizard.”

General Kwan turned away from examining the interior of one of the heavier tracked vehicles as some of the men chuckled, a very strange sound considering their predicament.

“Excuse me, but what is this Big Gulp you speak of?”

Tram was actually zigzagging his way upward to the spot where Collins had fallen a few steps ahead of Everett. Down below, the giant robots were starting to root out the soldiers faster by the minute. They were tearing into solid rock and ancient lava to get at their hiding places. The noise of the attack along with the wiring and whine of the transformers and turbines echoed loudly in the large gallery. The screams and gunshots from their men were even louder.

Tram made it to the spot where Jack had been hit and gone down. As both men ducked and took cover, they were stunned to see that Jack wasn’t there. Everett looked around the area and placed his hand on a darkened spot near the rock wall. He lifted his hand and saw that it was blood.

“Damn it, Jack, where the hell did you go?” Carl asked as three explosions rocked the gallery below. As he looked up he saw that instead of the terrorists assisting the soldiers below by firing on the metal monstrosities, they were actually firing into the retreating soldiers.

“Sons of bitches,” Everett said, as he vaulted over Tram and continued climbing. The Vietnamese private waited a split second and then went in another direction.

Everett knew Jack was heading for the mortar pit. The problem was that they didn’t exactly know where it was on the high wall overlooking the gallery below. They hadn’t been shot at yet, so after Jack was hit they must have detoured their firing to another spot.

Everett knew that they and their men below were running desperately short of time.

The Mechanic made sure Alice was secure on the rocky incline and he raised his radio. A few minutes before he had seen several men run headlong into the blockhouse three hundred yards away.

“Place three rounds of HE into that blockhouse. There are men holing up in there.”

The Mechanic was getting ready to turn and face Alice once more when he saw a sight that froze him to the spot. There was a man approaching the mortar pit from above. He raised his radio, but knew the warning would come too late. He sent forward a squad of men, ordering them to kill that man and make sure they didn’t damage the mortar. He cursed himself for underestimating this American colonel.

He reached down and pulled Alice to her feet. For her part, she didn’t resist or try to twist away. The Mechanic saw the knowing smile on her face.

“Having problems down below?” she asked. “The colonel can be rather a pain in the ass, can’t he?”

The Mechanic shook Alice by the arm, making her wince but not cry out.

“The rest of you, we will change our position in case this American gets lucky. I want ten of you to get to the blockhouse by any means and kill everyone inside. Then bring me back the weapons. We will meet you at the gallery that leads to the underground river. Hurry, our transport is waiting.” He looked down at Alice. “I hope you can swim, old one. If not, you will remain with your friends forever in this underground hell.”

“Those metal monsters down there have more honor than you,” Alice said as she was pulled along the ridge.

“Then you will not mind spending your last minutes with them.”

Jack saw the three ammunition runners, two mortar men, and three guards-eight men altogether. He ducked his head back below the rocks where he had hidden himself. He checked his ammunition clip. He had seven nine-millimeter rounds. He then removed his KA-BAR knife from its sheath. He winced as he felt the broken rib where the bullet had lodged. He used his wrist to check the wound and knew he was bleeding heavily. He looked up and saw the two metal giants tearing into the hiding place where Sebastian had managed to lead most of the men.

Collins knew he was slowly bleeding to death, as the blood was flowing far too quickly from a wound he hadn’t initially thought that serious. He knew the bullet must have clipped an artery. He grimaced at his bad luck at not seeing the sniper guarding the mortar pit before it was too late. He shot the man who had shot him, but only after he had run headlong into his position, a move that had taken them both by surprise.

As he took the rocks one loose step at a time, another hollow thump sounded from below. Jack stopped and saw the mortar round arc into the cavern’s interior, where it nearly clipped the stalactites far above and then sailed downward. It landed mere feet from Sebastian’s entrenched troops. He even saw the first massive robot recoil from the explosion. Then, as if nothing had happened, the machine started digging, tossing large stones that appeared to weigh in excess of three tons out of its way. It recommenced pulling and prying at the stone and the long dead lava flow, trying to get at the troops.

“By God, that’s enough,” Jack hissed, and then jumped the last ten feet, landing in the mortar pit that had been dug into the rubble on the side of the gallery wall.

In the split second before he hit the side of the gallery, Jack shot the man, who had just dropped a mortar round into the large tube.

Collins had hit too hard. He momentarily lost sight of the mortar crew as he slammed into the rocks and then fell onto his chest and face. He hurriedly brought up his nine-millimeter and fired at the man adjusting the sighting of the mortar tube. The bullet caught the man in the side, spinning him into the rock wall. Jack knew he had slowed his reactions down with a hastily planned jump from above. He tried to struggle into some semblance of a firing position. A bullet clipped his left arm just above the elbow and another missed his head by a mere inch. He brought the nine-millimeter around and shot the first thing he saw. It just happened to be the two men carrying the M224 sixty-millimeter lightweight mortar rounds to the pit from a place where they had stored cases of projectiles. The first bullet hit the lead man in the chest, knocking him back into the second. Both of them dropped the rounds they were carrying. Jack aimed quickly and shot the second man as he hit the rock wall beside him. Both had been taken off guard by Jack’s makeshift assault.

Collins had no time to catch his breath. He felt a presence behind him. It was one of the pit guards and spun at the last moment, bringing the gun up. He was far too late, as the man anticipated his move and slammed the barrel of his AK-47 against Jack’s wrist, breaking the bone and spinning Collins to his right. As he spun, he brought the knife in his left hand to bear and caught the terrorist by surprise just as he thought he had caught the American. The knife sliced cleanly through the man’s throat, forcing his hands up. As Jack arrested the momentum of the blow to his wrist, he recovered quickly, before the dying man could get a lucky shot off out of reflex. He thrust with the knife one last time and caught the man before he could figure out that he had been killed. The Russian-made weapon fell to the rocky path the man had used. Jack slammed into the wall and turned, thinking he might catch his breath, only to see the ten men that the Mechanic had dispatched coming down the rock incline directly toward the pit.

As Jack went on both of his knees to retrieve the dropped nine-millimeter, he had to use his left hand for the remaining six bullets. That was when he saw the third ammunition carrier, followed by the last two guards. He fired with his shaky left hand and hit the most dangerous targets, the two guards, first. One of the bullets hit the lead guard in the face, slamming him against the ammunition carrier. The second bullet hit the ammunition carrier by mistake, allowing the trailing guard to take aim at the surprise attack by Collins. The guard saw his chance and pressed the trigger.

Jack flinched as he realized he had made a mistake. He should have been more deliberate in his aiming. He waited. The bullet never came. The man just stood there, unmoving. Then he saw the terrorist slowly fall forward. Jack shook his head as he saw Carl Everett standing behind the man with his own knife. He had dropped down right behind the trailing man and killed him as he aimed his weapon.

“It took you long enough,” Jack said, then went down to both knees.

Everett took two long strides forward and lifted Collins to his feet.

“Yeah, well, if I had a commanding officer who explained a plan before he acted on it, I would have been here sooner.” Everett helped Jack to a small rock and set him down. Collins slapped at his hands and pushed them away. He pointed.

“More men coming,” he said, as he grew light-headed.

Everett pulled Jack’s shirt open, tearing free the buttons as he tried to see how bad the wound was. He cursed when he saw how fast the blood was flowing.

“Don’t worry about them. We have to get this blood stopped.”

Collins again tried to push Everett’s hands away. He looked up at the ten men, who were sliding and stopping and then sliding again as they tried to get close enough to kill them both. That was when Jack realized that the men weren’t slipping and sliding down the hill-they were falling and scrambling for cover. Rounds were fired from somewhere, bringing the men down. One at a time they were hit and then slid down the incline, never to move once they came to rest. He shook his head as the last four men turned on their heels and started to run back the way they had come. Then he saw dust and dirt fly from the men’s backs, as bullet after bullet hit their mark, quickly ending their retreat.

“Tram again,” Jack said as he finally let Carl work on him.

Everett tore his own shirt at the bottom and created a makeshift pressure bandage. He tied it as tightly as he could, sending a shockwave of agony through Jack’s body. He knotted it off.

“Yeah, at first I thought I left the little bastard behind, but then I realized that he had taken a liking to you and figured he would show up sooner or later. Now we have to get you to a medic. This bandage won’t hold.”

“No, get that tube adjusted. We have six rounds of HE right here. We have to get those things away from Sebastian and the men.”

Everett knew that Jack was right. He took a quick look down below just as the first of the two robots dug a man out of his hiding place and tossed him into the air like he was so much refuse. The man hit the floor and the second mechanical killer raised a large steel foot, bringing it down on the Polish soldier. Everett nodded his head in anger. “Right,” he said, helping Jack back to the mortar tube.

He put Jack down and reached for a round from the hands of the nearest dead man. That was when he felt hands shove him away from the large caliber round. He looked up and saw Tram. He laid down his M-14 and gestured for Everett to do the aiming of the mortar. The Vietnamese reached down and hefted the first round into his arms, then approached the tube.

“Handy fella, isn’t he?” Jack hissed as he held his side. Before Carl could nod he saw blood oozing out between Collins’s fingers. As he bent to adjust the tube, he saw Jack try to stand.

“Sit down, Jack. You’re bleeding to death!”

“Have… to get… Alice,” Collins said, as his head started to spin.

“Don’t worry about Alice. That asshole’s not going to hurt her as long as he has a chance of using her. Now stay down or I’ll tie you up!”

Tram brought the round to the tube as Everett made the last adjustment. He turned and saw that Jack wasn’t going anywhere. He had fallen back to the floor, cursing his weakening body.

“Adjusting for HE, ready?” He looked at Tram.

The Vietnamese held the round poised above the tube.

“Drop!”

Tram allowed the round to slide through his fingers and into the tube. He ducked away as the high explosive round thumped into the firing pin at the tube’s base. With a loud whump, the round left the tube. Carl watched and waited, hoping he had remembered how to adjust the sighting correctly.

The round flew out and up. The whistle of the flight could be heard over the destructive digging of the mechanical assassins below. Everett and Tram watched as their quickly adjusted attempt struck just behind the second robot. The round tore a massive chunk out of the gallery floor and the robot fell backward, flailing its giant arms as it tried to regain balance. It disappeared in the flash and debris from the explosion.

“Yes!” Everett said, as he slapped Tram on the shoulder. The Vietnamese didn’t return the congratulations but only pointed.

The robot was starting to get up from the spot where the floor had given way to the detonation of the mortar round. First it went to its hands and knees, and then it regained its footing and stood. It looked around as if it knew it had been sucker-punched.

Everett gestured for Tram to reload.

The small private turned and went for another round as Carl adjusted the angle again. Tram held the second round over the tube’s aperture.

“Drop!”

The round whump ed out of the tube and went on its way. The whistle told Everett that this one would be right on. The round caught the second robot squarely in the chest as it finally regained its footing after the first blast. The HE round detonated and blew the robot backward into the first. They both went down hard.

As suddenly as the two hit the rocky ground, they were back up again.

“This isn’t working, Jack. I don’t know what these things are made of, but we’re not harming them. That’s a tough battle chassis.”

Jack strained to see over the rocks that were protecting their position. As he did so he saw the first robot stand up and start looking around. Then he saw the strangest thing imaginable. Lasers protruded out of a cavity in its head and began rotating. They seemed to lock on to something, expanding into something that resembled the spokes of a wheel. Then the rotation ceased and the single green laser began tracking the heated arc of the expended round. Jack could actually see the laser start to whip back and forth, creating a haze of light that tracked the arc of the round from its origin.

“Oh, oh,” Jack said, as Everett saw the same thing. He didn’t hesitate.

“Drop!”

Another round flew from the tube and arced toward the two robots. The round landed right on top of the second mechanical beast and exploded between its neck and shoulder. The force of the blast knocked the robot from its feet and sent the second machine face forward, where it smashed into the hiding places of their soldiers. But even through the smoke and debris they saw both of them rise out of the smoke and fix their positions high up on the gallery wall. They both started forward at the same moment after locking in on the arc of the second round.

“I think we may have a problem,” Everett said. He watched far below as the robots not only started coming at them, but began running up the slope, making loud banging noises as their steel feet came into contact with each step. Everett raised his radio.

“Sebastian, get our people out of there!”

Carl didn’t wait for a response. He let the radio slip from his hands and reached for Jack as the robots hit the slope of the gallery wall running. He figured they had two minutes left.

“Come on, Jack. Time to skedaddle,” he said as he lifted Collins up.

“Put me down and get the hell out of here. Get Alice if you can,” he hissed.

“Ain’t happenin’ this time and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. We’ll get Alice together.”

With the help of Tram, they lifted Jack up and started to scramble up the slope. They felt the vibrations of the robots as they used both arms and legs to scrabble up the slope. They were focused on one thing, the area that had attacked them. Carl knew they would be caught in about a minute.

“Sit me down,” Jack said through clenched teeth as a thunder of small arms fire erupted from below. “That damn Sebastian follows orders and so will you.”

Down below the hundred remaining men opened fire on the advancing robots. Their fire was accurate, but it was like watching pebbles bounce off tank armor. The robots paid the men below no mind as they advanced on the more serious threat of the mortar.

Everett turned to Tram.

“Get out of here, son. You’ve done real well today-now it’s time for you to go.”

Tram looked at Everett as if he had gone mad. Instead of replying, he reached behind him and unslung the M-14. With his eyes still locked on the captain, he inserted a twenty-round magazine into the old rifle. With deliberate slowness, he raised the M-14 sniper rifle and started firing slowly and deliberately at the first robot in line. The mechanical menace was only fifty yards away.

“Jack, I don’t think these men respect our rank,” Everett said. He kneeled beside Jack and waited.

“That’s what you get when you set an example like that. By the way,” Jack hissed, “you’re fired, Mr. Everett.”

“That’s a nice reward for trying to save you.”

“That’s the reward for not saving me.”

Everett turned back and his smile was brief as he saw the lead robot nearing their fragile targets. He watched as the first stepped onto the mortar tube, crushing it like it was a straw, and then continued on up the rocky slope to the real threat-the men who had used the weapon.

Everett reached out and removed his nine-millimeter from its holster. He raised it and fired.

The flash of the light made everyone in the gallery look away. The momentary brilliance of the blue light was followed by a loud buzz, as if a thousand saws had bitten into the same piece of wood at the same moment. There was a sudden smell of ozone as a beam of light reached out and hit the leading robot in the left leg just as it was seeking purchase against the slippery slope of the incline. Then another flash of light struck the robot as it slipped partially backward from its original position. Everett just stared at the barrel of his nine-millimeter, which was when he saw what was happening below at the bunkhouse. Appleby, Pete, Niles, Dubois, and Charlie Ellenshaw were standing and pointing up toward their position. Ellenshaw was aiming one of the alien weapons from the rack. As Everett watched, he fired on the trailing robot. The beam sliced both of its legs off and Everett saw it fall. Then he smiled as he saw Ellenshaw jumping up and down and pointing at his perfect shot. The others were jumping also, slapping Ellenshaw on the back.

“You’re not going to believe this one, Jack,” he said.

Collins wasn’t going to answer. He had closed his eyes and that was when Everett saw that the blood had soaked the bandage. He grabbed Jack in his arms, and with Tram leading the way didn’t wait for Ellenshaw and the others to stop their firing. As the laser weapon discharged again, Everett smelled the molten steel of the monsters as the intense heat melted their huge metallic frames. The thick blue beam arced out and sliced the arms off the first as it tried to right itself. Then another shot creased the giant’s head, separating it from the rest of the body. Everett heard the turbine inside its massive chest start to run down.

Another shot took the second creature out as cleanly as the first. Then Charlie turned the weapon on the men the Mechanic had sent down the slope toward the blockhouse. The single shot brought them all down, most of them in pieces. As Everett, Tram, and Jack neared the bottom of the sloping gallery wall, there was a burst of light and the sound of a small explosion. When they hit the bottom, Carl saw Sebastian and his men emerge from positions where they had been firing on the metal monsters. They looked as though they were in shock. Carl looked over at the scientists as they finished rolling Charlie Ellenshaw around on the gallery floor in an attempt to smother the fire that had engulfed him after the last shot. There were shouts of anger and happiness coming from the group as Ellenshaw sat up and looked around, the remains of the alien weapon in his hands. His long, stringy, white hair was singed, a mess of electrostatic complications as he sat on his butt, not really sure what had happened to him. Carl approached the men at the same moment Sebastian and his troops arrived.

“What happened?” Everett asked, as two medics started looking Jack over.

“I told him that the mineral was still too unrefined, but Wild Bill here had to keep pressing his luck,” Niles said as he walked over and looked at Collins. “Jesus, get him inside.” The medics tried to pry Jack away from Everett. Collins reached out and grabbed Carl, anchoring himself.

“Alice,” he said, as he was finally pulled away.

“Now we go and get her, Jack.” Everett watched them take Collins inside and then turned to Sebastian and Tram. “We have one more thing to do.”

The three men sprinted back up the slope, toward a showdown with the man who was holding their friend hostage.

The Mechanic ordered the last of his men to hold off the advancing troops, who were led by the large commando he had seen in Germany. He had witnessed the power of the alien technology and knew he had to secure at least one of the weapons for reverse-engineering, to use in the great Jihad against the unbelievers.

He pushed Alice Hamilton toward one of his men and ordered him to guard her, as they still had need for her services. Then he wrote out a note in English requesting a meeting with Colonel Collins. He shoved it into the man’s hand and pushed him in the direction of the Americans. With a glance down at the shattered scene below, the Mechanic could see the devastation wrought by the alien weaponry, even as he remained stunned at the destructive power of the giant robotic monsters. In a span of five seconds the tables had been turned by just one of the weapons. He nodded his head-yes, he thought, the weapon was truly a gift from Allah to the true believers. McCabe and Rawlins had been such fools thinking they could just sell off the magnificent gift from the heavens.

Everett was moving at a full run toward the spot where he thought the Mechanic had last been. Sebastian and Tram were having a difficult time keeping up with the large Navy SEAL as he bounded up and over rocks to reach the top of the slope.

As he approached the Mechanic’s last known whereabouts, he saw movement ahead. He steeled himself behind a large rock outcropping and waved Sebastian and Tram to a stop. Ahead he saw one of the Mechanic’s men moving slowly and cautiously down the slope. Everett stood and pointed his nine-millimeter at him. The shadows cast by the lighting from above showed that the man didn’t fear the death that was facing him. Everett had seen this many times before in the men he had faced during the Gulf War and after. A true believer. The man had a rifle, but it was slung over one shoulder. Then he saw the man raise his left hand into the air. With the other he held something out toward Everett. Carl stepped forward, as did Sebastian and Tram. Everett opened the folded note and read.

“Trade, one Alice Hamilton for one alien weapon,” he read aloud.

Sebastian stared at the man who had delivered the ultimatum. The man glared at the three men with contempt etched across his harsh features.

“What are your orders for after you deliver this?” Everett asked.

“To return with an answer,” the man said with vehemence coloring his broken English.

Everett raised his nine-millimeter and shot the man in the head. He dropped like a weighted bag onto the rocks.

“I like the way you negotiate, Captain,” Sebastian said as he kicked the terrorist over with his boot.

“The conversation sort of dried up. Besides, we don’t reward people who kidnap friends of ours.” He looked over at Sebastian and then at Tram. “Do we, Private?”

Tram only nodded and gestured upward with his hand. Everett nodded back, then turned and ran, retracing the dead man’s steps.

Carl, Sebastian, and Tram had gone about a hundred yards when they saw the top of the ridge and the end of the gallery. Everett smelled water and suspected the Mechanic had gained access to the gallery from the very place he and the others had escaped two weeks before. He knew that if they didn’t stop the Mechanic here and now, no one else would stop him. They had no men covering this access point to the mines. The Mechanic would escape justice for the crimes he had committed. He decided to take his chance now and stop him.

“By all means, keep coming forward,” a voice said from above.

Carl stopped and Sebastian almost ran into him. Tram was nowhere in sight.

“I want the German to turn back down the slope and be back here in five minutes with two of the weapons from the blockhouse. If he has not made it back by that time, your Mrs. Hamilton will see Paradise this day.”

Everett saw the Mechanic as he looked out from behind a wall of stone over the small alcove leading to the underground river. Then he saw a line of about twenty men as they watched from a place of concealment. He took no shots at any of them. Their only hope was Tram and his sniper rifle.

“Deal. Let Mrs. Hamilton go and I will honor Colonel Collins’s word to you,” Carl said, hoping to buy Tram time.

He heard several shouts followed automatic weapons fire on the trail above them. As Carl ducked back into the rocks he heard the familiar sound of Tram’s M-14 opening up. Everett grimaced and cursed, knowing that Tram had been discovered. The M-14 was silenced as the small private realized his one shot at surprise had been lost.

“You astound me in your arrogance, Captain. Now just to be clear as to my intent, I will have the man who thought he could outflank me shot.”

He heard commands given and then more automatic fire erupted from above. As Carl swung around, he and Sebastian saw the Vietnamese private fall from the outcropping he had been hiding behind. They watched as his body hit the rocks ten feet below. Everett closed his eyes and wondered how many people would have to die over this.

“I am waiting, Captain. You have lost your best asset. Everyone else has to come up here facing entrenched positions-he was your last hope for diversion.”

Just as Everett was about to acquiesce to the command, another long burst of automatic weapons fire opened up from above. But this time it wasn’t directed at them or anyone below. It was coming from the Mechanic’s left. The rounds hit his men with deadly accuracy and dropped them like turkeys in a line. The Mechanic’s eyes widened and he pulled Alice in front of him as the last two men dropped at his feet. He had no idea how his men could have been outflanked. The hundred soldiers far below in the gallery couldn’t have come up the slope without being discovered. He placed a gun to Alice’s head. She didn’t fight. She knew all along who it was that lay in ambush, waiting for the terrorist. It was someone the Mechanic could never outthink, and someone Alice had known would be there from the moment she was taken.

As they both watched the trail ahead of them, Garrison Lee stepped out of the shadows. His Ingram submachine gun was still smoking as he stood his ground in front of the Mechanic. Alice could see the spark of life in the old man’s one good eye. The other, covered with the eye patch, was just below the old battered fedora. The senator said nothing as he took in the scene before him. Alice could see the sweat running down Lee’s face.

“You are the dead man I saw in the tent,” the Mechanic said. He tightened his grip on Alice.

“I knew you would come for me, you stubborn old bastard.” Alice looked at the man she had loved for well over seventy years.

“You didn’t think I would miss this, did you, old girl?” Lee looked at the Ingram in his hands and saw that the bolt was locked back, meaning the gun was empty. He raised his eyes and then tossed the weapon away.

“Raise your hands, old man,” the Mechanic said, pointing his automatic in Lee’s direction.

Instead of complying, Lee slowly sat down on a large rock. He removed his hat and wiped sweat from his brow.

“Will you excuse me if I tell you to go to hell?” Garrison said. He leaned over and tried to catch his breath. “It took everything I had to get here and see this young lady once more. Sorry, old girl, but that’s all I had.”

Alice felt the sting of warm tears clouding her eyes.

“It was more than enough, Garrison. I love you for trying so hard. I knew you would.”

Lee just chuckled as he tried to straighten up.

“She will be the last thing you do see, old man.”

Lee finally looked up at the man who held the woman he loved.

“Young man,” he said. He brought the old fedora up to knee level. “Better men than you have been saying that for many years. I find you and your kind far more despicable than you will ever know.” Lee took a deep breath, and knew by the sound that he had ruptured something deep in his chest. He continued walking anyway, to give Everett more time to get there in case he faltered. “You take what is good in something and twist it with your love of killing, when you know deep down inside that the way of murder is not the true way. I find you most distasteful.”

“Then I will show you mercy and relieve you of your life and your concerns for my ways. And then I will blow this woman’s brains all over your dead body when I am finished.”

“You’re finished right now,” Lee said as his fedora exploded. The 45 automatic Lee had used in the war fired twice. He hoped Everett was prepared to move. The first bullet hit the Mechanic in the shoulder, barely missing Alice’s head. The impact allowed Alice to twist away as the second bullet hit the Mechanic’s right forearm, sending his gun hand away from her.

The Mechanic, shocked, heard for only a moment the shots coming from behind him as four nine-millimeter bullets slammed into the back of his head, throwing him forward onto the trail. Everett ran up with Sebastian close behind.

As Alice ran toward a sitting Garrison Lee, she saw him toss the ruined fedora away and then stare at her as she came to him and took his large, thin frame into her arms. She collapsed against him and he held her.

“I ruined my damn hat,” he said, as he placed his arms around her for the first time with anyone watching. He squeezed her as she cried. “There, there, knock it off. You’ll embarrass us in front of the German.”

As Everett and Sebastian took in the scene in front of them, they failed to notice a man that Lee had only grazed rise to his feet and take aim at Alice and Lee. Carl, unable to react in time, shouted loudly in fear and frustration as the terrorist aimed. Suddenly, a single shot echoed loudly in the now still gallery. The terrorist spun away and fell down the slope, dead.

“I’ll be damned,” Sebastian said.

A hundred yards down the slope he and Everett could see Tram, bloodied and dirty from his fall and with more than one bullet in his body, lower the pistol he had used and then, exhausted, turn and sit down.

“I guess he can shoot anything,” Sebastian said. He looked at Everett. “I’ll flip a coin with you to see who gets to take him home.”

Everett smiled and then moved off to tend to Lee. “You’ll have to ask Jack. I think he’s already claimed him.”

Lee held Alice. They both were content. Alice could feel Lee’s heart through his shirt and knew it was fighting a losing battle. She finally looked up as she noticed Everett standing over them.

“I think your hat’s had it, Senator,” Everett said, and reached down and pulled Alice to her feet.

“Funny, that was the one thing I was going to give you in my will,” Lee said as he tried but failed to look up at Carl.

“We have medics on the way,” he said as he held Alice. “They’ll take a look at you, sir.”

“They’ll look, but that’s all they’ll do. How is Jack?”

Everett’s silence was enough for Garrison Lee.

Alice turned and watched as Lee lay back against the large rock. With his good eye he fixed her with that look that said everything without his having to say a word. She pulled away from Everett and went to Garrison. She sat with him for a while.

The battle for Columbus was over-at least on Earth.