Origins (6 page)

Hastelloy waited patiently as the Alpha came at his ships with wave after wave of complex but ultimately easy to repel attacks, thanks to the ease of
interior reinforcement movement the Novi fleet enjoyed.  The Alpha commander appeared determined to win the engagement with finesse rather than a barbaric bull rush, which is what the situation truly required.  Finally, Hastelloy saw it: the Alpha fleet completely scattered and was preparing to assault all at once.  ‘I love it when a plan comes together,’ Hastelloy thought as he located the magic group of 100 vessels containing the Alpha command ship.

Hastelloy opened a comm. channel to the fleet.  “Execute.”  With the single word uttered, the fleet sprang into motion.  The point of the sphere formation farthest from the Alpha command group moved at full speed directly at the targeted ships.  The rest of the sphere followed like dominoes from back to front.  On Hastelloy’s screen it looked like the Novi formation was completely turning inside out.  The Novi fleet was on top of the Alpha’s command group in the blink of an eye and annihilated anything in its path without mercy.

Hastelloy didn’t have time to celebrate his tactical victory; the remaining Alpha ships were intent on following their commander’s dying order to engage them with every ship at every point.  Their attacks would be far less effective, however, without the Alpha command ship keeping things organized.  The Novi’s chances of victory were much improved from the start of the battle, but they were still outnumbered two to one, and the battle had now degraded into a disorganized melee.  It was up to the individual attack groups to work together, and let the battle maneuver programs coded into the ship’s computers do their work.

Both the Alpha and the Novi learned long ago that managing close quarters space combat was better left to a computer.  A ship’s central computer was the only thing capable of calculating speeds, angles of attack, locations of shield vulnerabilities, and paths of other ships around, all the while keeping the ship orientated away from an attacker to hide weaknesses. 

All of these compounding variables were incomprehensibly complex but the central computer could manage them all in nanoseconds and react instantly.  In the end, close quarters space combat came down to how well some tech geek thousands of light years away did his programming job.  The crews were quite literally just along for the ride.

As it turned out, the Novi programmers earned their pay.  After hours of fierce and relentless combat, the numerical advantage the Alpha fleet enjoyed was all but eliminated.  The cost was great, however.  Hastelloy ordered his remaining ships to form up at his rally point.  The mighty fifth fleet was reduced from over 1,000 ships to just four: one Hastati cruiser, Two Onagers, and his nearly unarmed collector ship. 

Hastelloy could see the Alpha fleet was in only marginally better shape with ten attack ships left plus the accursed twenty-five constrictor ships still trapping them there. 

Considering how badly outnumbered the Novi were to begin the conflict, this was a significant victory, but it would quickly turn into a crushing defeat if the collector ship didn’t make it to safety. Hastelloy was out of options.  He had one last trick lingering in the back of his mind, but he was loath to act on it.

During the battle, Hastelloy came to know two things for certain about his adversaries.  First, they knew the remaining Novi ships would not stray from the collector ship.  Second, the Alpha ships would do almost anything to destroy the remaining Onagers.  Their long range weapons and wide spread destructive fire power achieved 90 percent of the damage in the battle. They desperately wanted these ships out of the fight and Hastelloy planned to grant their wish - for a price.

He opened a channel to the remaining ships.  “Men, it’s been a distinct honor to witness the skill and bravery of this day.  The Nexus has collected nearly 20 million lives.  This collector ship must escape or these lives will be lost forever.  The orders I just transmitted will achieve this, but it will require the bravest of all acts from the crews of the Onagers.  To be able to die with purpose and for the greater good is all any soldier can ask.  This noble death belongs to you.  The millions of lives saved as a result of your sacrifice will honor you and your families until the end of time.  I am sorry I let you down, but this is the only way.  Execute order Omega.”

With the order given, the Onagers broke away from the other ships, peppered the Alpha vessels with a volley of pulse concussion bombs, and made a break for one of the constrainer ships.  The Alpha were only too eager to go after the Onagers and deliver payback for the countless comrades they lost to those ships. 

The Onagers were no match for the speed of the Alpha vessels.  All ten ships closed in for the kill.  At the last possible second, one of the ships felt the trap and pulled away.  Just then the two Onagers detonated their remaining ordinance inventory.  The result was a massive concussion wave that destroyed anything it touched.

While the Alpha were busy closing in on the pesky Onagers, the two remaining Novi ships headed at full speed for the nearest constrainer ship.  The Hastati cruiser fired everything it had at the constrainer ship and didn’t flinch on its way to collide with the mammoth vessel where the shield generators were supposed to be located.  The fireball from the collision was so intense Hastelloy needed to shield his eyes.  The flames died down, and Hastelloy realized, in horror, that the constrainer ship was still there.  “Tonwen, what’s the status of the mass density field that ship was putting out?”

“The constraining field is still in place, but both their shield and structural integrity fields are down,” Tonwen replied.

“Did you say both fields were down?” Hastelloy asked hopefully.

“Yes sir.”

A bright and broad smile filled Hastelloy’s face.  “Valnor, plot a collision course for their engineering section.”  Then Hastelloy issued an order not uttered by a naval officer intending to survive a battle since wooden boats sailed the oceans propelled by wind.  “Ramming speed.  Execute.” 

With both fields down the Alpha ship was only held together by the metallurgy of its hull.  This was no match for a fully shielded ship traveling 200 miles per second. In the blink of an eye the Lazarus flew in one side and blew out the other, igniting the fuel in the engine compartment which start
ed a chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the Alpha ship.

A deafening war cry came from the crewmen on the bridge.  Valnor bellowed at the top of his lungs, “It is a privilege to serve with you, Captain!”

“Tonwen, what’s the status of the mass density field?”  Hastelloy inquired calmly.

“It is down, leaving a small gap in the field for us to escape.  We need to move fast though.  The other constrainer ships are moving to close the gap.”  Tonwen replied.  “There are three possible systems we can go to, all unexplored and on the outer rim.”

“Valnor, pick the farthest one and get us there – now.”  The captain ordered.  As the helmsman moved to comply with the order, Hastelloy looked at his display to make sure the Onagers had taken care of all the attacking ships.  He couldn’t be certain, but he thought one ship may have pulled away just before detonation.  That could be trouble he thought.

The Lazarus completed the space fold to safety, and the bridge let out a collective sigh of relief.  They were out of danger, temporarily at least.  Without looking up from his display screen, Hastelloy commended his crew.

“Well done gentlemen, but we need to save the celebrations until we get back to Novus.  We won’t be able to space fold again until the reactor cools down, which will be a few hours.  Make the damage assessment and begin scanning the system in case we need to hide from anything that may follow us here.”

When he didn’t hear any movement from the crew to carry out his orders, Hastelloy looked up to find his four crewmen standing at full attention saluting their captain.  Suddenly realizing what they had all just accomplished, he stood and returned the salute.  All of them then set about their duty except Gallono, who held the captain’s attention a moment longer.

“Ramming speed?”  Gallono asked in openmouthed awe.  “You definitely attached your balls right this morning.”

Professor Russell couldn’t
imagine a slower three-mile drive in the history of mankind than his road trip to the mysterious warehouse district.  They managed to catch the traffic lights when they were green, but that didn’t matter much in Cairo since drivers only obeyed the flow of traffic, not the color of the signal. 

Adding to their difficulties, the bridge over the River Nile was exceptionally crowded for a Monday morning and the entrance to the warehouse district was tough to find since there were no signs saying ‘secret passage entrance this way.’  It was as if the place didn’t want to be found.

In all there were ten good size warehouse buildings inside the complex.  On the surface everything looked like your typical industrial business park.  There were delivery and transport trucks coming and going while all around men and women walked from their cars to start the workweek. 

The one exception was a small 1,000 square foot building near the southwest corner of the complex.  There was no activity whatsoever, and the GPS coordinates pointed precisely to that structure. 

Alex pulled the Range Rover up to the front door of the suspicious building with no corporate logos or business hours posted.  There were no windows or loading docks either, just a single locked door. 

Being a mechanical engineer who worked for a field archeologist, Alex was no stranger at unlocking things that didn’t want to be opened.  She calmly pulled out her lock picking tools, which consisted of a tension wrench and a nail file.  She stepped up to the lock but stopped when she realized a 26-pin lockset doorknob protected the building’s secrets. 

“Well now that’s just rude,” Alex stated sarcastically.  “Most locksets only have 6 pins.  The most I’ve ever come across was 12 and that door led to the University’s mainframe servers which housed student grades, donor lists, and private research results among other highly protected pieces of information.  I’d say this is a good indication we’re onto something important here.” 

Professor Russell tried to put on a stern face.  “The data servers?  I knew your grades were too good to be true when I hired you,” he joked.

“It’s amazing how easy it is to make an “F” look like an “A”.  The next time we’re out for a beer remind me to tell you the story,” Alex said with a laugh.

“The door?” Dr. Andre prompted.

“Will you be able to work your magic here Alex, or is this game over for us?” Professor Russell asked.

“I can get us in, but I’ll need to get a bit more sophisticated.  Unfortunately, that means using my lock pick gun and having my ear pressed
to the door for a while.  That’s going to look a bit conspicuous to people driving past I’m afraid.  Are you sure we should proceed?”

The professor pursed his lips, cocked his head, and turned his eyes skyward for a few seconds of contemplation.  “We’re going to pretend the rules of the road extend to other activities in this country.  We’ll go no matter what the signals say until something dangerous makes us stop.  Alex get your tools.  I’m going to reposition the truck to conceal as much as we can.  Then Dr. Andre and I’ll make a human wall in front of you and keep an eye out for anyone taking notice.

“The worst case is someone calls the authorities, they show up, we present our dig right order from the government, and the good doctor explains the situation.  It won’t keep the discovery private, but it’ll keep us all out of jail; something to which I’m rather partial.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and set about their respective tasks.

Alex had the door opened after ten very anxious minutes and from what they could tell, the group was fortunate not to draw any unwanted attention.  Though the door looked ordinary from the outside, it had steel bars running through it that extended into the walls when the door lock was engaged.  Nothing short of a wrecking ball could have broken through the door by force.

The three hurried inside and turned on the lights.  Surprisingly there was no security system or cameras needing to be neutralized.  The owners of the building appeared to trust the unbreakable door to keep people out.

There was nothing at all remarkable about the building’s interior, just row upon row of floor to ceiling storage shelves packed full of paper files.

“Well, this is certainly worth protecting with a lock and door like that isn’t it?” Alex asked of no one in particular.

“No, but the gateway it conceals is worth the extra security,” Brian replied.  “Actually, I expected to run into considerably more barriers than we have so far.  It appears protecting this place in a low profile fashion is very important to the owners.  That lock looks just like any other to the untrained eye.”

“Right, and having an alarm system would attract a lot of attention in the event of a break in,” Alex added.

“Plus, there is nothing inside to steal except some dusty old files,” Dr. Andre said while taking an apprehensive look around.  “Well, we tried.  We had best be leaving now.”

“Not yet.  This place is the perfect cover,” the professor said with a reverent tone.  “If we hadn’t discovered the tunnel and knew the exact coordinates of the entrance, I don’t think we would have had a chance in hell of finding the opening.  Happily, we do.  According to the GPS readings the opening should be exactly twelve feet from the west wall, and eight feet from the south wall.”

The group took measurements of the room and located the precise spot.  The only problem was a shelf full of files weighing several thousand pounds covered it.  Even with three individuals pushing with all their might, the shelf was going nowhere.  Professor Russell got on the ground to take a closer look. 

It was imperceptible while standing, but being an inch away with his eyes he could just barely make out a straight-line gouge in the floor indicating the shelf, or part of it, could slide forward.  He pulled away the files on the first two rows of shelving and finally found the release mechanism; a tiny button on the underside of the second row shelf. 

With eager anticipation the professor pressed the button and was rewarded by the sound of a lock releasing.  He stood up and slid a three-foot wide section of the shelf out of the way to reveal an airtight manhole cover.  Alex returned to the truck and came back with a crowbar that she put to good use and opened the lid to reveal a pitch black hole with a ladder built into the side.

“The sonic density readings indicate this tunnel goes down about three hundred feet.  That’s well below the water table here.  I wonder if the tunnel’s flooded,” the professor observed. 

“There’s only one way to find out.”  Alex pulled out a hand full of glow sticks, cracked them to life and dropped the bundle down the hole.  The only sound they heard was plastic hitting a solid surface.  “Looks like we’re good to go.  Who’s first?”

Before the others had time to utter a syllable, Professor Russell spoke up, “This is my expedition, and therefore the risk is mine.  Everyone put on a helmet lamp and sling a floodlight over your shoulder.  Once I reach the bottom and determine its safe I’ll call you down.”  Without another word, the professor hooked up his lighting equipment and climbed down the dark hole.

Climbing down a three hundred foot ladder was not particularly difficult, but climbing back up would be another matter.  At the bottom he was relieved to see the tunnel was a six-foot tall, six-foot wide cylinder lined in a metallic substance that had absolutely no seams.  In the back of his mind professor Russell was nursing the idea that this was all the work of some sophisticated grave robbers, but he was not aware of any manufacturing process that could result in a three-mile long seamless metal tube buried a football field length under ground.  Something much bigger was in play here. 

“It’s safe for you to come down but be careful.  That first step’s a
doozy,” he yelled up to the two waiting anxiously for their turn to descend into the darkness.