Peggy Sue (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (7 page)

“Is that you, Ludmilla? My goodness, you look wonderful for someone supposedly killed by a solar flare.” Olaf stepped forward to meet her and warmly grasped her hand. “I truly did not know what to think after you called. Even after seeing Dr. Saito here, alive and well, I was afraid to hope. My God, this is wonderful!”

“Believe me, Olaf, I’m as glad to be talking with you as you are with me. Yuki and I had been beyond hope when the Peggy Sue rescued us from the ISS.” Managing to reclaim her hand from Dr. Gunderson’s grip she turned to Elena and said, “You must be Lucrezia Piscopia, it is very nice to meet you.”

“
Grazie,
” the Italian astronomer replied, shaking Ludmilla’s hand in turn. “Please, call me Elena.”

“And you must call me Ludmilla, since we are all going to be colleagues.” Then Ludmilla spotted Kim, half hiding behind Dr. Gunderson. “And who are you, young lady? I was not aware that Olaf was bringing a date.”

Both Olaf and Kim blushed, while Kim managed to stammer, “I’m Kim, Kimberly Lawson, Professor Gunderson’s assistant.”

“Your assistants get younger and prettier every year, Olaf,” Ludmilla said with a knowing smile and sideways glance of her eyes. This caused Olaf to turn even redder and Kim to look both confused and upset at the same time.

“This is all perfectly innocent, Ludmilla!” He managed to say. “In fact, I don’t even know how Kim got to Australia.”

“Hmm, so you say,” she said, not letting him off the hook just yet. “Now you, Miss Lawson, what do you know of the purpose of this trip?”

“I,” she started, “I overheard Prof. Gunderson on the phone, something about the ISS astronauts being alive somewhere in Australia. It sounded mysterious and dangerous and I didn’t think he should be going alone. So I followed him.”

“Well you are here now. We will just have to see what the Captain wants to do with you.”

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the Captain had walked over to the cluster of crew, to be greeted by a chorus of “good evening, Sir,” from those assembled there.

“Lt. McKennitt, I see you were able to collect all our lost sheep,” Jack said to the young pilot, Then, turning to the young man standing beside Sandy, he said, “you must be Nigel Lewis, good to meet you in person.”

“It’s good to meet you, Sir,” the man said, shaking hands. His accent was English, not Australian, his hair black and curly, eyes gray and complexion fair. He looked every inch a young Royal Navy Lieutenant, which is precisely what he had been up until a few months ago.

The Captain then shifted his gaze to the three muscular men standing beside JT and Billy Ray. “And these must be the Chief’s acquaintances.”

“Yes, Sir,” JT replied, “may I introduce Petty Officers Bud Jones and Phil Kowalski and Chief Petty Officer Rick Morgan?” The three drew themselves up to attention and stiffly shook hands with the Captain.

“Welcome, gentlemen, I’m Captain Jack Sutton, commander of this three ringed circus,” Jack said, smiling. “I wanted you all here together so I could meet everyone at the same time.”

“Good to meet you in person, Sir,” said Chief Morgan. “You gave us a lift to a job once off Somalia a few years back.”

“Ah, Chief Zackly did mention something about our paths having crossed previously.” The Captain nodded to the three SEALs. “Welcome aboard, gentlemen. Rather than force you to sit through an evening with a room full of scientists and officers, I’ve asked Mr. Vincent to take you below and explain what we are all about here. After that, since you will undoubtedly feel more comfortable in the canteen, Senior Chief Zackly will join you there and you can catch up on old times.”

“Aye aye, Sir,” the three replied as one.

“With your permission, Captain?” Billy Ray drawled. Jack acknowledged and Billy Ray led his charges away, headed in the direction of the hall elevator. Before they boarded the elevator it discharged two new passengers: a slightly pudgy young man wearing the black jumpsuit of an officer and an old man seated in a four-wheeled electric wheelchair.

“Jack!” shouted the old man as he drove into the room. Sighting his target, the man in the wheelchair headed straight for the Captain. As he did, the chair transformed itself, rising from four wheels to two and extending upward. The now standing old man shouted, “Jack, my boy! Let me get a good look at you!”

The gaggle of scientists stopped talking amongst themselves and turned to face the loud newcomer. As the scientists and ship’s officers looked on they witnessed a sight few had ever seen—the cybernetic septuagenarian leaned forward in his gyroscopically stabilized wheelchair and enveloped the Captain in a bear hug.

C130 Hercules, Somewhere Over The Southern US

Gunnery Sargent Jennifer Rodriguez sat, eyes closed, in the uncomfortable canvas seat. Her head tilted back, she was running her tongue over the inside of her cut and swollen lip, trying to figure out just what sort of cosmic bunny hole her squad had fallen into. Her hands were in zip cuffs before her. Her head ached and her ears were ringing from the noise of the transport plane’s four large turboprop engines.

Opening her eyes, the Gunny looked around the dark interior of the transport’s cargo hold. Seated around the hold were the other surviving members of her squad of Marines—more precisely, five marines and one Navy Hospital Corpsman. Farther forward, isolated from the others, was the sad figure of the Lieutenant. The Gunny could not have predicted the type of reception they were to receive when the shuttle dropped them back at Parker’s ranch, but this was not on the list.

After watching the shuttle disappear into the rising Sun, Lt. Merryweather used LCpl. Reagan’s cellphone to report their whereabouts to his superiors. Little over an hour later, a pair of AH-1 Super Cobra’s roared overhead, popping up from the far side of the dilapidated dirigible hangar to the north. This was followed shortly by a pair of MV-22 Ospreys, one landing to the east of their position and one to the west.

Each Osprey disgorged a full complement of 24 armed Marines, while their door gunners covered the puzzled squad of returnees. As the platoon sized force of heavily armed men quickly surrounded Lt. Merryweather’s unarmed little band, a voice over a bullhorn ordered, “Stay where you are! You will all take a kneeling position with your hands behind your heads. Any resistance will be met with deadly force.”

The LT raised his hands over his head and tried to asked why this was happening, only to draw a burst of warning fire. “I think they are serious, people,” he said to the squad members, sinking to his knees. “We had all better do as they say.”

The squad moved to comply as their captors moved in, weapons at the ready and pointed at the confused Marines. “Man, this is so bogus,” said PFC Sanchez. This brought a quick command of “Quiet! No talking!” from the man with the bullhorn, who appeared to be a Marine captain.

They kneeled before their captors for what seemed an eternity before a CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter flew in and landed with its tail toward them. Dust swirled around both captor and captive, as the big helo’s single rotor spun down and its rear cargo ramp lowered. From the darkened cargo hold of the CH-53, an officer emerged with several men wearing flight suits displaying no insignia.

The Marine Lieutenant Colonel, who was evidently in charge, walked over to the still kneeling squad. Lt. Merryweather tried to stand up and report, saying “Sir, Lt. Merryweather reporting with a party of eight.” This earned him a rifle stock in the stomach, which took him back to his knees.

“Damn it, we’re Marines!” the Gunny shouted. For this she received a boot in the back that knocked her face down in the dirt and resulted in the cut and swollen lip she was still savoring. LCpl. Washington also tried to protest the treatment of the Lieutenant, or possibly the Gunny, earning him several blows that laid him out on the dirt.

“There will be no talking,” the light bird said. “You will be zip cuffed and marched onto the helo. If anyone attempts to speak you will also be gagged.” While he was speaking several members of the arresting party moved the two crates that contained the squad’s weapons and ammo up the ramp into the helo’s cargo area. Once this was done the zip tied Marines were marched in as well.

The helo took them to Goodfellow Air Force Base, where they were isolated in a remote hangar and interrogated individually by the men in civilian dress. The irony of their incarceration at Goodfellow was not lost on the Gunny, this was the first stop on the squad’s ill fated mission to the San Angelo Airshow, more than two months ago.

After a brief head call, the squad was once again zip cuffed and marched on board a waiting C-130 cargo plane. The C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport that has been in use around the world for over half a century. It was built for neither comfort nor speed. The Gunny had no idea where they were being taken, only that things were probably going to get worse before they got better.

They had been aloft for over two hours and had not yet started a descent. With a range of better than 2,000 nautical miles they could be headed to Camp Pendleton, outside San Diego, or Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. For that matter, they could be headed for Gitmo, the still operational terrorist detention area on the eastern tip of Cuba. Regardless, after being manhandled by a platoon of motards and thrown on board a transport under armed guard, the end was not likely to a happy one.

Kong Karls Land, Svalbard, Norway

Lt. Bear was happily rambling along the northern shore of the largest Island in the Kong Karls Land archipelago, singing a Frank Zappa song. “Way up north were the huskies go, don’t you eat no yellow snow,” he sang tunelessly, slightly mangling the lyrics. Words to live by, as far as Bear was concerned.

Not that Bear was a big Zappa fan, but the hero of this particular song cycle was named Nanook. And since Nanook means polar bear in Inuit, the song was a good one in his book. This was because Lt. Bear himself was a 1300 lb polar bear.

Most of the 2,400 or so human inhabitants of Svalbard live on Spitsbergen, the largest island in the nearby Svalbard archipelago. More important to Bear, Svalbard and Franz Joseph Land share a common population of more than 3,000 polar bears. Moreover, Kong Karls Land is the most important breeding ground for polar bears in Svalbard and, as a consequence, it is completely off-limits to all visitors. This was fine with Bear, since the natives were required to go armed outside of the few settlements precisely because of possible polar bear attack. Nothing like a trigger happy Norwegian to ruin your day.

There was still sea ice in the water north of the island, though the climate in Svalbard was generally warmer than other areas of the high arctic. The Sun was getting low in the sky, but it would not be setting until the end of the month. In the spring, polar bear mothers brought their new cubs to the islands, but things were starting to thin out. Earlier, he had bagged himself a ringed seal, the first fresh meat he had feasted on in ages.

For variety, this morning he climbed a cliff and breakfasted on some seabird chicks and eggs. Polar bears, like other bears, are omnivorous and will eat almost anything, but they are more adapted to a carnivorous lifestyle than either brown or black bears. Having satisfied his yearning for fresh food, Bear was now working on his second objective—finding the company of his own kind.

Talking polar bears often figured in the mythology of native Arctic peoples and, as is frequently the case with legends, there was a basis in fact for such tales. Among the world’s 25,000 or so polar bears only a small minority, a few thousand at most, can talk. According to his human friend, Captain Jack, both humans and polar bears had been genetically altered by aliens. The result of this evolutionary meddling was talking hominids and talking ursines.

Whatever the aliens’ intent, talking bears were much smarter than normal polar bears, with a noticeable talent for learning languages. Bear himself spoke English, Russian, Sami, Norwegian, Finnish and a half dozen Inuit dialects, mostly picked up by hanging around human settlements or from listening to the radio at abandon research and hunting camps. Remarkable language skills aside, Bear was currently using a communication skill that had more to do with his primitive ancestors. Periodically sniffing the air as he walked the flat tundra along the shoreline, he caught the scent of something familiar and female.

Following the scent, he headed inland and traveled over a low ridge before sighting the object of his search. Down at the bottom of the hill were three bears: one large male, a half grown male and a female. The female and smaller male appeared to be squared off against the bigger male, a bruiser who looked even larger than Bear. No matter, Bear headed straight for the developing fracas.

* * * * *

As Bear drew near it became obvious that the large male was a normal, non-talking polar bear. That meant the situation would not be resolved with words. Close up, he could hear the voices of the two smaller bears. “I said run away, Umky,” the female said to the adolescent male.

“And let you face this big dork alone? No way Mom.”

The large male roared and charged. The younger male got between the male and female, leading to his being swatted down to the ground by his larger adversary. The big male was probably twice Umky’s weight and proportionately taller—the smaller bear was going to take a mauling if someone didn’t intervene.

Intervention came in the form of the female, obviously the adolescent bear’s mother. She plowed into the larger male, knocking him off her cub. This caught the big male’s attention long enough for him to throw her roughly aside. His intention was not to harm the female, he had more amorous designs on the she bear.

“Pardon me asshole,” came a deep rumbling voice from behind the big male. “I know you can’t understand this, but it would be best for all involved if you hauled your smelly carcass off over the next rise.”

The big male, turning around to see another male polar bear about his same size, rose up on his hind legs and roared at the top of his lungs.