The Nautilus Sanction

12

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucas saw Martingale edge around slightly so that he stood just behind the guards who had their weapons trained on them. While all eyes were on Drakov, save those of the guards who were watching the commandos carefully, Martingale’s right hand went to the warp disc strapped to his left wrist.

Drakov reached into his pocket and removed a small communicator. He turned it on and as he spoke, his booming voice came through a speaker system, filling the interior of the volcano.

“Attention,” he said, looking out over the base. “Attention. We are now at T-Day minus one hour. All personnel have fifteen minutes to report to the assembly hall to begin transition. Clocking will commence by unit in twenty minutes. Control and missile crews of the Nautilus stand by your stations, all other submarine and tender personnel report to the assembly hall.”

Martingale was gone.

The scene barely had time to register on Martingale’s consciousness as he fugue-clocked into the briefing room. He prayed he had programmed the disc correctly. There had been so little time. He had only a momentary impression of seeing a man seated before him and a roomful of commandos in battledress before he shouted out the date and time coordinates and winked out again.

Forrester was on his feet in an instant, shouldering the floater-pak and buckling the harness. “Now, people! Move it!”

Not a second’s time was wasted. Those who were eating or smoking simply threw the cigarettes or food onto the floor and grabbed for their floater-paks. Warp discs were quickly programmed with the coordinates Martingale had shouted. Forrester repeated them loudly, several times, to make certain everyone had them right. As the floater-paks were secured and the discs were programmed, they took position where they stood, left arms cocked in front of their chests, discs facing up, right arms raised to indicate the discs were staged. Forrester didn’t wait to check that everyone was ready. The moment a significant number of hands were raised, he gave the order.

“Go!”

No one noticed the barely discernible confluence of atomic particles making only the vaguest hint of a shadow in a corner at the back of the room. The tachyonic essence that was Dr. Robert Darkness did not wait for Forrester to give the attack order. The moment Martingale disappeared, Darkness hurtled across parsecs of time-space with a speed faster than thought. The First Division could stop the time pirates, but it was up to him to save Martingale and the three commandos.

Drakov stared. A flicker of movement had caught his eye and he blinked, puzzled. What had he seen?

“Captain,” Verne said, finally finding his voice, “this is madness! If those explosives are as powerful as you say, hundreds of thousands will die!”

“More like millions, Mr. Verne,” said Drakov, staring at Martingale. “But it is necessary in order to-Martingale, what did you do just now?”

Martingale frowned. “What do you mean, Chief?”

Drakov quickly glanced at the commandos, then at Martingale. “You

… moved. I could have sworn-”

“Drakov, listen to me,” Lucas said quickly, realizing what Drakov hadn’t realized yet, but was about to. The fugue had been a second or two off. “You haven’t-”

“Be quiet, Priest. Something just happened-”

“Nikolai, look!” shouted Benedetto, pointing.

Drakov spun around. Benedetto was pointing up at the mouth of the volcano. He squinted and saw what appeared to be birds high overhead, but they were too large and as he looked, more of them appeared, out of nowhere, descending swiftly.

“Sound the alarm!” he said, then, remembering his communicator, he turned it on. “Red Alert! Red Alert! We are under attack!”

Martingale karate-chopped one of the guards and wrenched his laser away from him, but Shiro was on him before he could fire. His right foot arced around in a lightning, spinning-wheel kick and the laser flew out of Martingale’s hand and over the side of the wall. Only the mercenary’s swift reactions saved him from the second kick, which followed the first with astonishing speed. Shiro had continued the spinning movement that initiated the first kick and came around with the other foot flying up at Martingale’s throat. The mercenary deflected it, backing away as Shiro continued moving forward rapidly, spinning around and around, cutting loose with kicks as if he were a moving buzz saw.

“Kill them!” Drakov shouted to the guards, activating his warp disc in the same instant and vanishing from sight.

Before the guards could fire, they became briefly enveloped in a blue mist of Cerenkov Radiation and their atoms disintegrated. Darkness turned his disruptor on Shiro, but his target reacted with amazing and decisive swiftness, vaulting over the side of the wall and dropping forty feet to the ledge below. Darkness could not move to shoot him.

“Quick little bastard, isn’t he?” said Darkness. He tossed the disruptor to Lucas. “Catch.”

For a moment, von Kampf had been mesmerized by the sight of the guards disintegrating, but as Darkness tossed the gun to Lucas, he suddenly roared and charged him. He passed right through the Doctor’s body and his momentum carried him over the wall and past the ledge. With a scream, he fell down to the rocks below.

“Quickly, take these,” said Darkness, taking several more disruptors off his belt and tossing them to Andre, Finn, Martingale and Land.

The moment he had sighted the attack force, Benedetto had shouted out his warning, then fled. Things had happened so quickly that they only now remembered him.

“The elevator!” Finn said, turning and sprinting for the door. Martingale was after him in an instant.

“How the hell do you fire this thing?” said Land, gazing at the warp gun in puzzlement.

As Andre quickly showed him, Lucas approached Darkness. “Thanks. You saved our lives. Can you get down to the submarine?”

“I don’t have the coordinates,” said Darkness. “I can’t home in on it as I can on you and Martingale. You’ll have to manage for yourself; I’ve done all I could. Good luck.”

He disappeared.

They quickly followed in the wake of Finn and Martingale, but by the time they had descended the stone steps, they saw that Benedetto had already taken the elevator down.

“It’s no good,” said Finn. “He’s jammed it. We’ll have to get down another way.”

“There is no other way!” said Martingale.

Without a word, Land stuffed the disruptor inside his jumpsuit and leaped out onto the cable. For him, it was like the rigging on a sailing schooner and he made his way down it hand over hand with surprising swiftness.

“That guy’s nuts,” said Martingale.

“Maybe,” said Finn, “but that’s the way to go.”

“Gentlemen,” said Verne, who had finally found his voice after the shocking appearances and disappearances he had just witnessed, “I fear it is impossible for me to make such a descent. I have not the strength. I should surely fall.”

“Go back to the house,” said Lucas. “Stay inside. We’ll come back for you after it’s over.”

“God protect you,” Verne said.

Finn leaped out into the shaft and grabbed the cable, wrapping his legs around it as Land had done. He started lowering himself, though not as quickly. Andre waited for him to get a slight start, then took a deep breath and jumped.

“You’re next,” said Lucas to Martingale.

“No, you go ahead.”

Something in the mercenary’s voice made Lucas glance at him sharply. The man was deathly pale.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Martingale snapped. “Go on!”

“You’re afraid of heights,” said Lucas.

“Yeah, so what? Don’t worry about it, it’s my problem.”

“Okay, forget it. Stay here with Verne. You’ve done more than enough.”

Martingale stared at him. “Like hell,” he said. He swallowed hard and leaped into the shaft. For a second, he hung there precariously and didn’t move, his eyes tightly shut. “Oh, Christ, I wish I hadn’t done that! Jesus. Jesus.”

“Open your eyes, Martingale!” shouted Lucas. “It’ll be all right, just don’t look down. Watch the cable. You hear me? Watch the cable!”

Martingale opened his eyes and began to lower himself hand over hand.

“You’re doing fine,” said Lucas. “Just keep it up. Watch the cable. Don’t look down.”

“Not for all the tea in China, Jack!”

“I’m right behind you,” Lucas said. He jumped and grabbed the cable. Heights didn’t bother him since he had taken the plunge off the wall of Zenda Castle into the moat during his last mission. He looked down and saw that Martingale was making steady progress. Land had almost reached the bottom of the shaft. But Drakov had a very large head start.

As the jets on the floater-pak carried him down toward the mouth of the volcano, Forrester heard the whoop-whoop of an alarm reverberating through the air. So much for a surprise attack, he thought. There was nothing for it now but to come in fast and hit them hard.

He unclipped the auto-pulser from its fastening on his flight harness and held it ready in front of him. Just then someone shot past him with his floater-pak jets on full, leveled out in a fully stretched-out position to offer minimum wind resistance.

“Bryant!” shouted Forrester over the com-circuit, but with the wind from the speed of his descent, Bryant might not have heard him. And if he had, he would not have listened in anycase. Forrester knew exactly what the fool was doing. He was going in first, ahead of-Forrester, in an effort to draw fire away from his commander.

Several more commandos hurtled by Forrester in the same position and he cursed them, then stretched out himself and kicked the jets in, plunging into the mouth of the volcano.

Laser beams and pulser blasts came up at them like flak as the commandos fanned out upon entering the volcano, so as not to give a concentrated group as a target. Sullivan was in a flat dive, heading directly toward the submarine, firing his auto-pulser. Plasma blasts screamed past him and Forrester saw his floater-pak on fire. As the jets cut out, Sullivan fell, still firing his weapon as he hurtled to his death.

Bryant flew down in a fast arc toward the catwalks high on the left side of the base, where groups of men stood firing their weapons. He came in high through a barrage of pulser blasts, then abruptly angled down, still going flat out, making it difficult for the gunners to lead him. As he swooped past the catwalks, he fanned them with his auto-pulser and they burst into white-hot flame as they were enveloped in plasma. Men screamed as they were cooked to a crisp and the steel sagged, as if it were taffy, finally melting through. The entire structure collapsed to the roofs of the buildings below. Bryant kicked in his pilot jets at the last possible moment before he would smash head-first into a rock wall jutting out into the crater. He missed it by scant inches.

“Damn cowboy,” Forrester swore. He changed his own course and flew down low, feeling the heat of plasma blasts erupting around him. He angled up beneath the cable span bridges. Several other commandos followed him, providing covering fire. On the bridges, gunners tried to track them as they came in. One blast narrowly missed Forrester and hit Wendy Chan. There was nothing left of her.

As he came up beneath the bridges, Forrester cut loose at their cable supports while the others concentrated their fire on the gunners. Some of the commandos were using lasers, sweeping concentrated beams of coherent light across the spans. Several of Drakov’s men were killed instantly, others had their legs amputated and they fell over the side, screaming as they plunged down into the lake below.

One of the bridges collapsed with a roar as the supports parted, sending men tumbling into the water. The entire commando attack force was now inside the crater and they separated in all directions, swooping around like angry mosquitoes, firing at anything that moved. The heaviest concentration of defenders was around the submarine, trying to protect it, but already its hull was blackened from pulser blasts and there had been at least one direct hit on the rear of the sub. The aft section had been ruptured by a grenade set on minimal intensity. But as each commando flew down to strafe it, a heavy barrage of laser and pulser fire filled the air above and there were many casualties.

Somewhere down there, Forrester knew, were Delaney, Cross and Priest. If they were still alive. A lot of his people were getting hit. He didn’t want to lose any more.

“Set down!” he shouted over the corn-circuit. “Set down! Red Squad, secure the buildings on the side opposite the docks! Blue Squad, take the high ground on the same side and trap them between you, hammer and anvil! Green Squad, take the rocks on the far side past the main buildings! Gold Squad, follow me down to the rock cover near the docks!”

Finn took his disruptor and sprayed a blast of neutrons at the roof of the elevator, opening up a hole for them to jump through. He went first, followed by Andre, then Land, then Martingale and Lucas. Finn went out first into the hall, firing his disruptor as he ran. There wasn’t much resistance. Most of Drakov’s people were outside, engaging the attack force. The few men they encountered opened up on them, but against the disruptors, even auto-pulsers made poor weapons. The plasma blasts disintegrated as they ran into the neutron spray and in moments, Drakov’s people were retreating.

“You were right,” Finn told Martingale. “It’s a lovely little sidearm, this warp gun.”

“Drakov’s got too much of a lead on us,” said Lucas. “Come on, let’s make a run for the tender.”

They sprinted through the building, firing as they ran, taking a chance that they wouldn’t catch any fire from the corridors and chambers to their sides. They made it to the building entrance and kept right on going, running full tilt toward the docks. The Valkyrie was in flames. Several buildings on the opposite side of the lake were burning, sending up clouds of smoke. They heard men screaming as they burned, caught between the flames and the commandos. One cable span bridge had been utterly destroyed, the other dangled by a single support over the lake like a broken toy. Black smoke was coming from the Nautilus.

A plasma blast struck the ground before them as they ran, bursting into a cloud of flame. Martingale was caught in the wash. He caught fire as he ran through it, screaming, moving on like a flaming juggernaut.

Finn tackled him and started rolling him over and over in the sand, heaping sand upon him and trying to snuff out the flames. Lucas, Andre and Ned Land ran on. A laser beam lanced across their path. Andre was able to react quickly enough to leap over it and roll, coming up running, but Land was caught by it and cut in half. He fell to the ground in two parts, screaming horribly and writhing. There was nothing anyone could do. Lucas swore, pointed his disruptor at him and fired. The screams ceased.

They were dressed like Drakov’s men and the commandos had no way of telling who they were at a distance. They were being fired upon by their own people. Andre was pinned down, having scrambled for cover behind a large outcropping of rocks near the lake. Only her constant firing of her disruptor kept the plasma blasts from cooking her. Lucas fell down beside her and saw where a group of Drakov’s men had set up a firing base in one of the storage buildings near the tender, protecting the submarine. As they watched, several men came out on the deck of the Nautilus, casting her loose from the tender.

“He’s getting away!” said Andre.

Two of the men on deck were killed. Lucas fired his disruptor at the others and they were briefly shrouded in blue mist, then they disintegrated. But the sub had already started to drift loose from the tender.

“No,” said Lucas, gritting his teeth. “No, God damn it, no!”

One of the hatches on the deck of the Nautilus sprang open. Lucas jumped and ran across the beach, sprinting toward the tender. Andre laid down covering fire for him as he ran with all the speed he had, screaming to get the adrenaline rush going. As he ran across the dock, leaping from it to the tender, a shower of flame and splinters erupted behind him and lie felt the heat wash from the pulser blast as it destroyed the dock. Without breaking stride, he tucked the disruptor into his jumpsuit and leaped for the sub. He just barely made the deck and he scrambled for a hold, then was almost trampled by the men who came running out of the hatch to dive into the water. They didn’t pay any attention to him. All they wanted was to get off the sub, which was in flames and taking on water.

Several more pulser blasts struck the submarine as Lucas dove through the hatch, sliding down on the handrails. His feet hit water at the bottom. It was up to his knees and rising fast. Smoke was everywhere. Several of the oil lines had ruptured and were spraying scalding hot, pressurized oil across the companionway. The watertight hatch before him was closed. He didn’t waste time trying to open it. He took out his disruptor, set it on spray, and fired.

“Captain, we must abandon ship!” cried Sasha, leaving his station at the helm.

“Sit back down!” said Drakov.

Unable to resist the conditioning, the Russian sailor returned to his post, looking around at the control room helplessly. Smoke was seeping in.

“Sir, we don’t dare submerge,” said one of the other crewmen. “We’re taking on too much water. We’ve been badly damaged. I’m shutting the reactor down.”

“Switch to diesel engines,” Drakov said.

“No!” shouted one of the other men. “It’s useless, don’t you see? We’ll die!”

He grabbed Drakov, but Shiro tossed him aside as if he weighed nothing. Water was now coming into the control room. Despite the immense strength of the submarine’s titanium double hulls, a pinpoint warp grenade explosion had caused a rupture and a spray had burst into the room, soaking down three of the men at the controls. They jumped at once and ran for the stairs leading to the hatch. Shiro turned to stop them, but Drakov called out, “Let them go! They’re useless now.”

At the words “Let them go,” the rest of the control room crew bolted.

“The key, Shiro!” Drakov said.

As they fought to get up the stairs, the Soviet sailors were caught in a blast of neutrons and ceased to exist.

Drakov inserted his key into the box containing the arming and firing mechanisms.

Lucas came sliding down the hatch, into the rapidly accumulating water on the control room floor.

With a snarl of rage and frustration, Drakov hit his warp disc and clocked out. Shiro had just inserted his key into the box.

“Don’t do it, Shiro,” Lucas said softly, aiming the disruptor at him.

Two coal-black eyes stared at him with loathing.

“It’s over,” Lucas said. “He’s deserted you. There’s no point in-”

Moving with dazzling swiftness, Shiro turned the key and flipped open the box. Lucas fired. Shiro’s atoms were scattered just as he was reaching for the buttons.

Lucas sloshed forward through the knee-deep water and gently closed the box, then took the keys out. He let his breath out slowly.

A glance at the indicators told him the reactor had been shut down. None of the missiles had been armed and all the silo hatches were still closed. But the attack was still continuing. He felt the sub shudder and roll and he was thrown into the water on the floor. For fear of exploding the missiles, they were using only the lowest setting on the warp grenades, using them as depth charges thrown into the water close to the sub, to rupture its hull. It was working very well. Blasts of water were coming in everywhere now and he had to fight his way through it to the ladder leading up to the hatch.

He tucked his disruptor inside his suit and climbed up, his feet slipping off the rungs. As he opened the hatch, he heard footsteps on the deck and before he could cry out a warning, a warp grenade came dropping down through the opening. He caught it, lunged through the hatchway and threw it as hard as he could out into the lake. The pinpoint blast went off, sending a gout of water up into the air. He looked up at Lieutenant Bryant, standing on the deck of the submarine, holding an auto-pulser pointed at him. Bryant lowered the weapon and without a flicker of expression, shrugged.

Lucas simply glared at him.

It was over. The remainder of Drakov’s force had surrendered and they were being gathered together to be clocked back to Plus Time for conditioning and return to their own time periods. The stolen warp discs were found in one of the supply rooms in the main building.

Forrester landed on the beach by Andre, after taking to the air briefly to survey the scene. Finn was kneeling in the sand beside Martingale, his hands badly burned from putting out the flames. Martingale was unrecognizable. His entire body had been severely burned and he lay on his back in the sand, a charred lump of flesh, barely breathing.

“He’s had it,” said Forrester.

Finn shook his head. “No. No, he’s in a real bad way, but we’ve got to try to pull him through. We have to.”

“Who is he?” said Forrester.

“The guy who saved our asses,” Finn said.

Forrester nodded, grimly. “Then I guess we’d best try to save his.” He beckoned one of the other men forward, then he unstrapped his warp disc, quickly reprogrammed it, then bent down and gently put it around Martingale’s wrist. Martingale’s own warp disc was burned into uselessness, melded into the crisped flesh of his hand. “Hardesty, give me your disc,” said Forrester.

The soldier quickly unstrapped his disc and tossed it to the colonel. Forrester programmed it and gave it to Finn. Delaney tried to put it on, but couldn’t manage it and Hardesty had to help him.

“They’re set for TAMAC,” said Forrester, referring to the Temporal Army Medical Complex in Colorado Springs. “Get yourself taken care of and you tell ‘em if they don’t pull this guy through, I’ll be down there to kick some ass.”

“You got it,” Finn said. A moment later, they clocked out.”Verne!” Andre shouted.

“What?” said Forrester.

She was looking up at Drakov’s house, perched high up on the wall above the lake. It had caught several pulser blasts and was in flames.

“We have to get up there,” Andre said. “Now! Get me up there! We’ve got to get him out!”

“Hardesty!” said Forrester. He turned on his jets and picked Andre up in his arms. Hardesty flew up alongside them as they rose to the burning house. Verne was out on the veranda, trying to shield his face from the smoke and flames. “Get him!” Forrester shouted to Hardesty.

Hardesty swooped up and grabbed Verne under the arms, lifting him off the veranda floor. Verne shut his eyes tightly and let loose with a rapid torrent of French. Hardesty understood French. He grinned as he heard The Lord’s Prayer. They quickly descended to safety and watched from the beach as the house fell down the side of the sheer wall and crashed onto the rocks below. Lucas and Bryant came up to join them and together they watched the Nautilus sink below the surface of the lake, into the depths of the volcano.