Last Flight of the Ark (17 page)

“If we don’t do it right?”

“You don’t want me to answer that. If I had time, I’d bring one of the pilots from the
Genesis II
on deck, but I don’t, so it’s your lucky day. I’m promoting you to copilot. Now hit that switch for me.” She nodded at the intercom.” My hands are kind of full at the moment.”

“Pack leader, copilot, I can’t wait to see what’s next.” Frank hit the switch and activated the ship-wide intercom.

Melissa grinned. “This is Captain Melissa Deluzio, pilot of the
Ark
. Please lock down for landing. We’ve got to set this boat down. Once we clear the mountains, we should be in good shape, but the air currents coming off the mountain range might shake us up a bit. When we land, I’ll need you to check your fellow crew members and administer first aid to anyone injured. All communications will go into blackout in one minute and resume once we land. Please standby for further orders.”

“Mountains? First aid?” Frank turned to her. His jaw dropped open and snapped closed.

“Relax. The only time you should be worried is when I’m worried. You can’t expect we won’t have a few bumps and scrapes among the crew. The
Ark
wasn’t made for planetary landings.”

“We’re going to crash, aren’t we?” Frank wore panic on his face like a Kabuki mask and appeared to be close to snapping. She needed to keep him calm and thinking clearly. In his defense, he’d never been in a navigator’s seat or even in flight simulation. All this was new and very scary. If she didn’t have so much to worry about, she might be close to panic herself. No reason to let on that things might not work out.

“I don’t know the meaning of crash. I’m a good pilot, Frank. Trust me. I can do this.” Melissa glanced out the glass at the world below in an attempt to get a hold of her courage. She needed to calm her mind, and his. The unease she sensed was quickly sending her into an anxiety attack of her own. She turned to look at him. Frank’s eyes were clamped shut. “Okay, let’s talk about something different. So how long have you been a military police officer?”

“I’m not. I’m with the Judge Advocate General’s office. A lawyer.”

“I thought you were security?”

“Yeah. They lumped us together with them. Enforce laws, make laws, and prosecute, it’s all the same in Earth Command’s eyes.” He frowned. “As it turns out, I’m the only legal representative present on the ship now. The senior officer in charge of the colonial legal department, Lieutenant Colonel George Black, was killed along with his second-in-command Captain Danvers and the rest of the
Genesis II’s
command crew.”

“So what kind of duties does a lieutenant in fleet legal have?”

Frank shrugged. “Not much. All the power belonged to Colonel Black. Earth Command gave him a great deal of flexibility with colonial law on Terra II. He was given the ability to create laws to suit our new world’s needs. He had all say in anything legal. Marriage, divorce, court-martials, you name it.”

“What about Captain Danvers?”

“He could marry, serve as a divorce or defense attorney, and could step into Colonel Black’s shoes should anything happen to him.”

“And you?”

“Go-fer.”

“Gopher?”

“Go for this, go for that. I did all the footwork and legal paperwork. Unless I’m promoted to a command position of at least captain, my jurisdiction ends at the tip of a pencil.”

“A pencil? That’s a little primitive.”

“It gives me time to think about what I’m writing. You don’t want a closing argument to sound dull.” The ship took the moment to lurch and Frank slammed his eyes shut. He white-knuckled the armrests.

“You can look. It’s okay.”

“Excuse me if I don’t want to look death in the face.”

So much for calming him. “Sorry, you’re going to have to do it. I need you to engage that red switch in front of you.”

“What does it do?”

“It helps us to get to the surface.”

Frank opened one eye and hit the switch. The thrusters fired as the vessel broke atmosphere. The
Ark
shook hard as the ship hit her first group of jet streams. Melissa activated and deactivated the vertical thrusters to keep her coming in on a proper angle and the crosscurrents of air from tearing the vessel apart. She wasn’t fast enough and clipped a strong stream, knocking the ship hard and tossing them against their harnesses. Melissa corrected and she smoothed out, barely missing the top of a mountain.

“Oh, God.” Frank leaned over and barfed beside his chair.

“How you doing over there?”

“Fabulous.”

“That’s good, because you need to sit up and get ready. The clearing is right at your twelve and I need your hand on the thrusters.”

“Why? Where are yours going to be?”

“I’m going to be keeping her from crashing. You’re going to do as we discussed. Dump the fuel into the backup cells feeding the engines and hit the forward thrusters.”

“Shit.”

“Not right now. When we land, you’re welcome to crap your pants, but right now I need you to focus on the red panel that’s blinking and when I tell you, push the green button and pull back on the lever.”

“Green button and pull back.”

“You’ll do great.” Melissa gave him a nod.

Frank turned to look out the canopy and swallowed. “I can do this.”

“Yes, you can.” The ground was no more than fifty meters and closing. “Now.”

Frank punched it and yanked back on the lever, pulling it off the panel. He lifted it, his mouth wide open. “I broke it.”

The thrusters fired. “Not broken.” The ship bucked and the engines conked out. “Okay, maybe a little. Hold on. We have to do this the hard way.”

“I thought that was the hard way.”

“Not even close.” The ship hit the ground and skidded, snapping trees off like toothpicks as she slid through the clearing and into a forest. The skin of the vessel squealed along with Frank as branches raked the sides.

As the
Ark
came to a stop, Melissa turned to Frank. “You can shit now.”

“Thank you, Captain, but I already did.”

***

“You’re sure Colonel Titan’s shuttle is this way?” Frank studied the forest.

“I’m positive.” Melissa glanced down at her navigational scanner, which picked up a shuttle’s signature. The rough landing had her a little mixed up but at least the homing beacon wasn’t jumbled. It didn’t lie. A shuttle sat at their twelve. All they had to do was keep walking and eventually they’d find it.

Now,
which
shuttle was another question. The scanner might do a lot of things, like monitor bio readings or relay satellite weather reports, even digitally plot a course. It could do just about anything except make the trip through the forest easier and tell her which Earth Command shuttle sat about two clicks ahead of them. They could be headed for friend or foe and it was anyone’s guess, since her com didn’t work. Melissa shifted her pack and stared into the thick growth. The heavy metal content in the soil in this location could be scrambling the signal and com. From the air, the interference hadn’t been too bad. She could speak to Kaleb then, but down here….

“I’m aerospace legal, not a grunt. I can sue the hell out of you but forget land navigation.” He eyed her scanner. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing. If we get lost,” he raised his hands, “not my fault.” Frank stopped by a tree and reached out to brace himself against it. “Not used to this gravity or air. Can you slow it down?”

“Negative. We need to find Colonel Titan and let him know we’ve landed. For some reason I can’t get them on the com.” Melissa slung her weapon’s strap over her shoulder and stared ahead. Who knew what surprises the aliens had for them on the planet? They could quite possibly be walking into a trap, and that she couldn’t reach Kaleb on the com didn’t put her at ease.

“How many of the aliens do you think are down here?”

“Not a clue. We didn’t get any readings off biologicals when we approached. It looks like they have a way to block our bioscanners.” Melissa used her sleeve to clear the sweat from her forehead. “I know the alien commander and her security guards are down here. I’m picking up their shuttle’s signature.” She pushed into an opening in the vegetation. This wouldn’t be the first or the last forest she’d hiked through. When she’d heard they were taking applications for the mission, she’d cross-trained in several areas, including outdoor survival skills. Anything and everything she could think of to qualify and get on board the
Genesis I
. Thank God for forward thinking.

It didn’t take long for the vegetation to thin. Pretty soon they were walking on what appeared to have been a paved surface. It was overgrown with weeds and trees, but the stone blocks under their feet were anything but random. Melissa’s hair rose on her neck.

“Uninhabited, my ass,” Frank said. “Earth didn’t get all their facts straight before they launched this mission.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s been used for a long time. The planet could still be uninhabited. Why, is another question. You’d think it would have wildlife or something, since someone lived here before.” Melissa stopped and grabbed Frank’s arm. She pointed into the distance. Ahead, a large building stood sentinel. “What would you call that?”

“Crap,” he said.

“Not exactly what came to me, but it’ll do. Gather the squad. We need to take a closer look.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I assure you, this isn’t a joke. That building might give us an idea who we’re dealing with. It looks abandoned, but I don’t want to take any chances. We’ll go in as though it’s occupied, on alert and with weapons ready. Who knows, maybe whoever they are, if they’re still around, they’re allies.”

“Yeah, like our buddies we met in space. What if this is their planet? Did you stop to think we might be the enemy and the ones invading them?” Frank turned and signaled the group to stop and move into cover. “Invading forces never do well on foreign soil.”

“Let’s hope that isn’t the case.”

***

“What is it?” Melissa stepped away from a metal hook. The building had to be a millennium or more old but not a spot of rust marred the hook’s surface. She swept her light around the massive room, taking in every detail. When her gaze hit a pile of rusted armor and weapons, she stopped.

Melissa cut a direct path to the pile. At least ten feet high, and it was one of maybe twelve nearby. Every pile consisted of ancient swords, spears, AK-47s, a few weapons she’d never seen and even a modern laser was tossed on top. It looked familiar. Melissa snagged it and examined the barrel. Engraved with each ship’s registration, she should be able to track it back to its origins at a glance. Her eyes widened. “The
Genesis II
. Someone’s been here recently.”

Frank stepped up beside her. “I know what this place is,” he said. “My grandfather was a rancher. This isn’t the first slaughterhouse I’ve been in. Even if what they slaughtered was different than what I’m used to, I know what I’m looking at. This is a killing place, and it looks like they’ve been getting takeout from Earth for thousands of years.”

“My God.” Melissa dropped the laser and brushed her hands on her pants. “Get everyone out of here.”

“I’m guessing that’s one of the hives you saw on the shuttle?” Kaleb pointed at the massive nest before them. At least twenty feet across and twenty feet high, it wasn’t as small as he’d expected, nor as small as Jessica had expected, from the look on her face. He reached over and pushed under her chin, shutting her mouth.

“Bigger. Much bigger,” she whispered.

The pod breathed. It had a heartbeat—actually, heartbeats. If he knocked a hole in it, would big, wormlike things slitter out? Every horrific science-fiction creature he could think of from his teenage-horror-movie days slinked through his head and reminded him why he was a scientist and not a freaking combat officer. Combat officers lived for this stuff. He’d rather run from it and study it under a microscope.

“Should we shoot it?”

“I don’t know, sir.” Jessica continued to eye the hive. “The outer shell on that nest is thick. I don’t think shooting it is going to do anything, but it has a hole that vents the heat to the outside. I saw it on the smaller one. On the top.”

“Oh, hell.” And what made her think climbing on the thing was a good idea? He’d no idea if it would hold his weight. “Are you sure it’s thick?”

“I’m sure.” She dropped her pack and dug out a rope, passing it to him.

“You got any courage in there?” He watched her rummage again and pull out a vial of the virus. Jessica glanced over her shoulder and gave him a strange look.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.” She handed him the vial.

“Not heights, monsters. Big ones with fangs.” If it didn’t hold, he’d be inside snuggling with whatever they were. He swallowed. Snuggling with flesh-eaters. Maybe they were giant worms or jellylike octopi? Who knew?

“I saw eggs. They probably haven’t hatched yet, and even if they have, you only need to drop the virus in. You don’t have to go inside.”

Yeah, and that was supposed to set his mind at ease? He nodded, still not convinced it was a good idea. He looked at the top of the nest again. Good idea or not, they needed to kill these things. He swallowed. He could do this. Simple. Easy. What the hell was he afraid of? She’d said they were eggs.

“All right, let’s do this.” Kaleb shucked off his pack and handed it to Jessica. He tied one end of the rope around his waist and his weapon to the other end, making a grappling hook. He tossed it up and it caught. “Lucky me. Found the hole on the first try.” He gave it a tug. It held.

“I’ll keep watch.”

He gave her a lame smile.

She handed him a thin flashlight that he tucked in the cargo pocket of his pants. “Take a peek and make sure they haven’t put anyone in there that’s still alive. I only counted three bodies.”

“I thought you said—”

“I know. It would be nice if this could also be a rescue mission. I guess it’s wishful thinking.”