Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (6 page)

If the scientists could reverse engineer the suit’s energy weapon, that would give them a better chance, but there were still so many. It would really take something special to drive the entire alien fleet away from Earth. For the moment, at least until more troops could be shipped in, they were outnumbered as well as outgunned.

It was no comfort to know he had been right with his initial thought the day before. They really were in for the fight of their lives. This was only the first battle of what would probably be a very short war.

Chapter Five

With the discovery that the aliens attacking them were in fact Roswell Greys of conspiracy legend, Area 51 resembled a kicked-over anthill once more. The prevailing theory around base was that if Roswell Greys were real, then anything could be real. When Julian had first heard one of his colleagues state that, he hadn’t been able to hold back his snort. They had just been invaded by aliens; what difference did it make that they were Roswell Greys? Either the invasion itself made fringe science theories more likely, or nothing would. The revelation that the invaders were Roswell Greys changed nothing on that score.

From the moment the booming voice had demanded their surrender, Julian’s quick mind had been ticking over the problem. Analyzing the data results from attacks on the energy shield was practical, but he was no fool. Even if they could bring one of the ships down, he was sure that the aliens would just recalibrate their shields. If they wanted to bring all the ships down, it would have to be a simultaneous attack, and that would only deal with the ships that were currently attacking Earth—if they were lucky.

Julian knew with certainty that the aliens wouldn’t have committed their entire fleet to this. They would have had to be fools, or desperate, and their actions so far appeared calculated and planned. They appeared to be quite the formidable enemy. No, they needed something bigger than their conventional weapons. They needed an edge, and right now they had nothing.

He had heard that one of the special forces units had recovered one of the alien ground troops. The body and the suit were being shipped out from McGuire. A few of his colleagues were practically salivating over it, but Julian was pretty sure the answer didn’t lie there. Given time—and it would likely take years—they might be able to reverse engineer the energy weapon and produce versions of their own. However, that was time the aliens would likely not give them.

If the aliens were smart, and Julian believed they were, then they would start hitting the world’s infrastructure. They would attack transports; they would bring down the power grid. If the military couldn’t move people and resources around the world, it was going to be very hard to get anything done.

Looking forward, it was easier to see a future where they were conquered—and maybe trying to fight a rebellion—than it was to see a future where they managed to successfully continue the war and eke out a victory. No, if they were going to win they needed something beyond standard alien technology. They needed a superweapon, or allies; it didn’t matter which.

Surely, there must be more aliens out there in the galaxy than the Roswell Greys, and if the little gray men made a habit of attacking worlds that had done nothing to them, they presumably had a few enemies.
After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend
, Julian reasoned. If they found that enemy, then they might stand a chance.

However, Earth hadn’t exactly put much investment into space exploration recently. After the excitement of the moon landing, funding had slowly dwindled over the years. The most recent space project had been the Mars probe, and that just wasn’t going to cut it. If they didn’t have the technology to reach up beyond the stars themselves, then they would have to find it elsewhere.

One option was to try and steal an alien craft, bring it back to Area 51, and see if they could learn the likely incomprehensible technology. This wasn’t the movies; the heroes couldn’t just storm the alien ship and fly it away with a quick glance. There was perhaps another way, though. He looked at the book he was holding in his hand. It was supposedly non-fiction, but he had picked it up at the airport last year, viewing it as trashy fiction to waste a couple of hours with.

‘Magic or Myth? The Truth Behind the Shrine of Iqmir’ was the title. It had been released four years ago, sinking the career of the man who had written it. It was a tale of a platform deep in Aztec territory that had many legends of disappearances and rumors of magic surrounding it. Ordinarily, Julian wouldn’t have given it a second look, but something about it had been nagging at him. Given the circumstances, an alien invasion did blow the concept of ridiculous out the window.

If the events talked about in the book were in any way accurate, it could be exactly what they were looking for, and consequently it had to be investigated. Julian left his lab and headed for the briefing room, which General Sampson had commandeered as a command post.

“General, I believe I have something,” Julian began. He handed the thin volume to the general, who read the title and raised his eyebrows. “I realize it looks like a frivolous line of inquiry, but I think it’s worth looking into.”

“Alright, Doctor Braden, you have my attention,” General Sampson told him.

“The book describes a number of legends surrounding a platform deep in the Mexican rainforest. Two of the legends are of interest to us. When I saw the footage of those suited aliens just appearing in a flash of light, it sparked the memory,” Julian explained. “One of the legends talks about people disappearing and reappearing in a flash of light and—”

“You think this platform is some sort of transportation device?” General Sampson interrupted.

Julian sighed. “When it was published, it all sounded so fantastical. There was apparently footage of a probe disappearing, carbon dating tests, elemental analysis—it was all discredited. However, now it doesn’t sound quite so fantastical, and—”

“Yes, yes, it could be real,” General Sampson said impatiently. “Get to the point, Doctor. How does it help us?”

“The second legend. It was first inscribed on a stone pillar, which has since been lost to the elements. Before it crumbled to dust, it was copied by one of the earliest explorers in that region. They thought it an allegorical tale.” Julian smirked. “I expect the truth is a lot more interesting. The tale talked of a being of great power that came to this world from another. Fresh from battle, they swore that never again would such evil threaten the world they called home. They built an unholy weapon, which with one strike decimated their enemies and—”

“A superweapon?” General Sampson raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “This isn’t a movie, Doctor. We’re dealing with reality, and there are real men—”

“The reality is that our current best hope will take years,” Julian snarled.

He looked around the room, at the people busying themselves with various tasks, some military, some civilian. A few of them looked over, and Julian grimaced. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“My apologies, General.” Julian lowered his tone, pitching his voice so only the general could hear him. “I know the importance of keeping up morale, but you and I both know that reverse-engineering the aliens’ tech is a fool’s hope. As I said, it’ll take years, and we’ll be lucky if we survive the week. The aliens don’t appear to be stupid; I’m sure they’ll target all research facilities soon enough. We need an edge.”

General Sampson nodded soberly. “You’re right, but we have to try.” He gestured with the book about the shrine, which he was still holding. “What makes you think this will give us that edge? Is this not just another fool’s hope?”

“Perhaps,” Julian acknowledged. “But we have to try anyway.”

The general gave a weak smile. “Okay, Doctor Braden, grab whatever gear you need. I’ll have whatever men I can spare meet you on the tarmac.” He handed Julian his book back and turned his attention back to the incoming reports from New York.

Pleased, Julian strode out of the room. It was about a four-hour flight to the nearest runway by the shrine. Hopefully the military could scare up a chopper to transport them and the gear they would need on site. It would be a long trip on foot given its location in the middle of a dense area of rainforest, and transporting the necessary equipment would be next to impossible. He doubted they would be able to land nearby; they would probably have to winch everything down.

Just over four hours later, they were at the shrine. The military contingent was hastily assembling a base camp. They erected a canopy to provide a small modicum of shelter for the gear, and hooked up the generator to the large industrial lights. It was before dawn, but even if the sun had been up, the lights would still have been needed.

The entire area was overgrown by the rainforest. Even though the shrine made a small clearing, the trees bent and swayed, their leaves meshing together in a thin layer above. Winching down had not been fun. One of the soldiers had gone first and set up a beacon, which had helped, but it was still a leap of faith.

The shrine was not the typical pyramid shape associated with the Aztecs. It seemed to most closely resemble a large, elaborately carved platform, which had a pedestal of sorts in the center of it. Behind the platform, there were some stone pillars that were starting to crumble and fall down. The pedestal was what interested Julian the most; it looked metallic, which was definitely out of place.

Julian pulled out the sensors and started to take readings. The first test he ran was a rough field version of carbon dating. He smiled in grim satisfaction when the test said the shrine was around two thousand years old, a lot older than anything that had belonged to the Aztecs. That proved that he was right, that there was something here worth exploring.

He wouldn’t claim to be an expert on the Aztecs; he was a real scientist, not one of those social scientists interested in history and culture. However, he knew enough to be able to recognize Aztec symbols. The platform was intricately carved, and nothing was reminiscent of Aztec design. Aside from the location, in the middle of the Mexican rainforest, there was no link to the Aztecs at all.

In the book, the author had claimed that the pedestal was otherworldly in origin. Given the other claims about magic, the tests the man had claimed to have run had been swiftly discredited. However, Julian now wanted to know if the author had been right. For everyone’s sake, he hoped that he was. Julian stepped up onto the platform. He had a handheld XRF spectrometer, which would tell him of what element the pedestal was composed.

It came back unknown, which could have been a flaw of the handheld system, or the pedestal could have been made of an unknown element and truly not be from this world. Either way, Julian swiftly jumped back off the platform. All the signs were saying that the claims made in the book, of being transported to another world, weren’t as ridiculous as everyone had believed. The last thing he wanted was to be taking an unexpected trip.

“Doc, Doc,” the captain who was the leader of his military escort yelled for him. Julian ignored him. The captain marched over and grabbed his shoulder, handing Julian the radio. “Doc, it’s Colonel Clark. He needs to speak with you.”

“Colonel, I’ve only just begun my investigation. When I have something for you, I will tell you. Until then, let me do my job,” Julian snapped into the radio. He thrust the radio back at the captain and strode off to prepare the robot probe.

A young corporal was kneeling in front of the probe, a tablet computer in hand. Julian took one look at what he was doing and growled in frustration. The man was calibrating it completely wrong, or at least not anything approaching the best way of doing it. They needed full sensitivity on the sensors, not the ham-fisted mess the corporal was programming.

“No, no, no, you idiot. Give that to me, you clearly can’t be trusted to follow the simplest of directions,” Julian Braden berated the corporal, grabbing the tablet computer and tapping intently. As always, he would have to do it himself.

Within minutes, Julian had the probe prepared to his satisfaction. He stepped back under the canopy and remotely controlled the robot probe over to the pedestal. He hadn’t gotten a detailed look; he’d been more concerned initially with the elemental analysis. However, he had seen that the carvings on the stone platform continued up the metal pedestal. They wrapped around it, making it almost look decorative.

It wasn’t the carvings that were the interesting part; it was the side of the pedestal. There were two straight grooves that were out of place among the intricate curves and swirls. He thought that there might be a compartment in the pedestal, perhaps access to its inner workings. If the platform was a transport device, then it had to have some kind of programming, even if the technology was beyond their comprehension.

The probe shuddered over on its track wheels. Julian raised the camera, getting a closer look at the lines. He manipulated the probe’s robot arm; there didn’t appear to be a catch, so maybe it was spring loaded and all he had to do was press.

The probe touched the pedestal, and a massive column of light engulfed the platform, shooting high into the sky. It was like thousands of individual beams of light, very bright and combined, but somehow still separate. It lasted for just a moment before the light was gone—and so was the robot probe. Julian heard some swearing behind him.

“Doc, any sensor readings?” the captain demanded.

“Nothing,” Julian spat in disgust, tapping on the tablet, but to no avail. “The probe was there and then it was gone. None of these readings tell me what happened to it.” Julian turned and looked at the captain. “Keyword being that the probe is gone. It went somewhere.”

“Colonel Clark,” the captain spoke into the radio. “Might want to prep a team.

*****

Battered and bruised, Leo led his squad through the hangar at McGuire. It was the dawn of another day, and he was sure that the fighting would begin again in earnest. The day before, after they had dropped off the dead alien, they had resupplied and headed back out there. The term ‘war zone,’ usually seen on television referring to cities in foreign countries, now definitely applied to New York. It was a complete disaster zone.