The Unearthing (35 page)

“There they are,” Rook One said.

“We have visual contact with the target Control,” Jude reported, “Moving in to engage the enemy now.”

The Ranger sped forward, closing the gap between the two vehicles. Ashe seemed to be riding in the back of the vehicle with his two followers driving and riding shotgun. The driver looked into his rearview and saw Jude’s Ranger approaching fast. The shotgun passenger turned to look. Ashe remained seated facing forward.

“No weapons visible,” Jude said, “Let’s take them out.” Jude and Rooks Three and Four made ready their weapons, the latter two opening the rear canopy to stand up with their rifles trained on the vehicle ahead. Jude leaned out his side window as the two vehicles drew to less than one car length of each other. Jude and Rooks Three and Four opened fire. The passengers in the open-top vehicle before them flailed under the assault, all three fatally shot within seconds. As the vehicle lost control, swerving left and right, Rook One backed the Ranger off a little. When the car turned wide enough Jude fired, taking out the front tires. The transport overturned and started into its death roll. Rook One brought the Ranger to a full stop and there Jude and his men waited until the target vehicle had come to rest. Both passengers and the driver had been thrown clear of the car as it crashed. All three of them would most certainly have been killed during the rollover if their bodies hadn’t already been riddled with bullets. Jude stood surveying the scene as his troops checked the bodies. Each was overturned so that they could get a look at their faces.

“He’s not here.”

“What?” Jude demanded, striding angrily over to Rook Four.

“Colonel, Ashe isn’t here!” Jude looked at the corpses. Two of them were obviously Ashe’s apostles, but the third had been gagged and his hands and feet had been taped together. The accident had torn the tape loose, but there was no doubt that the third body was that of a hostage.

“Son of a
bitch
!” Jude roared. He turned, marching back to the Ranger.

“Control,” he called into his mic, “We lost the King. They used a fucking decoy! He was not in the transport. Repeat: King was not in the transport. Gabriel Ashe is loose.”

They rendezvoused back at the crash-landed helicopter. By then an ESU had been dispatched. None of Jude’s personnel were injured, so the rescue team was ordered out.

“What do we do now?” Control asked, “The parameters of the mission have been completely scrapped.”

“We proceed with the mission’s final objective.” Jude said, “The extermination of Gabriel Ashe. He’s going to the Ship. To get him we have to get there too and we have to do so according to directives: Zero involvement of on-site military personnel.”

“That scenario’s no longer valid,” Control said, “The only way to get inside the Ship ahead of Ashe is via the Ramp. That means going through Fort Arapaho.”

“Then we don’t take the Ramp.” Jude said.

“There’s no way to get a vehicle down there without being noticed by the locals,” Rook One supplied. “I don’t know how you propose we get there.”

“Only one person’s going to go: me.” Jude replied, “And I’ll go from the far end of the Ship from Arapaho and the Ramp by paraglider.”

“Shit Knight,” Rook One said. “The amount of time it’ll take us to circle round to the far side of the Ship and the time it’ll take you to climb up to the Pyramid, the target stands a good chance of getting there ahead of you.”

“So it won’t be an ambush,” Jude countered. “It’ll be a hunt and a short one. There’s only a handful of chambers and accesses open down there. He won’t have much place to hide.”

“We’ll be out of communications range once you’re inside,” Control advised, “That means no tactical support and no standby evac.”

“Then we’ll have to supply me with as much hardware as possible,” Jude said, “Because I’m going after that bastard.”

♦♦♦

Gabriel Ashe limped as He made His way across the surface of the Ship towards the Pyramid, the entrance to the Chariot of His Ascension. He had fallen to the Ship’s surface during the last few meters of His climb. It had been dark by then and He hadn’t been able to see properly. He didn’t know if His ankle was broken or simply sprained, though he knew his arm was; the jarring impact had shattered his elbow and he’d had to tuck his hand inside his jacket pocket to immobilize it. None of it would matter once He reached the entrance to the Ship. Wounded, limping, his body wracked with pain, Gabriel Ashe made his determined way up the slope of the Ship, towards the Pyramid. The Shipsong was almost deafening at this level and He could see that the crevices that bisected the Ship were wider than He’d anticipated. It would be challenging territory even for one as Divine as Himself. Most of the way to the Pyramid was uphill and most of that a fairly steep and difficult climb, especially when the only real illumination was the blue bands of energy that lined the floors of the crevasses on the Ship’s surface.

His ankle wasn’t hurting as badly as it had following His fall. That was good. He had much territory to cover before He was safe. And if He was being pursued, which He knew He was, He had to cover that territory most quickly. Ashe knew He was being hunted; He had seen His hunter that morning in the Church. Gabriel Ashe had no doubt that the man had been sent by His Father’s enemies.

Ashe took a moment here at the top of His climb, to rest and to pray. He did so as He had always done since He had been a teen and first discovered His father waiting for him beyond the veil of His first acid trip. Ashe took the last dose of Holy Communion that He had; swallowing the pills dry, feeling the discomfort of having them stick and dissolve in His throat. Then He dropped to His Knees and spread His arms out to either side of His body. His elbow exploded in long sinews of pain as he pulled His arm from His jacket pocket. The night air was chilling rapidly as the full moon crested the sky. Despite being drenched with sweat and wearing only a light jacket and pants, Ashe did not feel the cold. His Communion was already strengthening Him against such mortal, physical concerns. His elbow faded to a dull throb, pulsing an invisible light out in cascading rings.

“Dear Father, I thank You for guiding Me safely here, to the gates of Your Father’s Chariot,” He prayed, “I thank You for the love of My Disciples, who became a Sacrifice Unto You so that I might live and reign with You and the Lord.” He was silent here, thinking about the followers who had Sacrificed themselves in His name not just here in the Village but around the world; attacking the heathens who did not know His Father’s Law and those who would bow down to the false God of the Ship instead of seeing it for what it truly was: a vehicle,
His
vehicle to the very Gates of Heaven. He thought of His last two Disciples; His two favoured Apostles who had lain down their lives at the last to protect Him from the Soldiers of His Father’s Enemy. They died of their love of Him as His Father had died of His love for Mankind. But now, His purpose here was fulfilled. He had proven His worth, for He had been delivered here and was free of His enemies at long last. His favoured Apostles would rule with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven, where even now they waited to greet Him when He arrived. He rose to His feet and began the walk around to the far side of the Pyramid, to the entrance into the Chariot of God and His Destiny.

Gabriel Ashe stepped through the entrance to the Ship, into the dark confines of the Pyramid. He paused before the dais and waited. All was exactly as it had been revealed to Him by the Angel of the Lord. The ring of the dais began glowing softly, lending light to the interior of the Pyramid. He watched as the floor of the elevated plain began to undulate and iris open. All was as it had been promised. Soon the crystal egg rose from the gaping hole. The crystal egg split and Ashe stepped aboard. He turned to face the doorway He had crossed from, leaving the Mortal world behind for the Heavenly. There in the doorway He saw the face of His Enemy. The solider was bringing his weapon to bear as the crystal egg resealed itself. The soldier fired and a spider web of cracks appeared across the surface of the lift car. Then as the lift dropped down into the Ship itself Ashe watched with no small wonder as the cracks healed themselves until the egg was once more as unmarred and pristine as the Virgin who had begotten His Father.

♦♦♦

Jude raced in after the departing lift but too late, the dais had resealed itself. He would have to wait and hope that there was no trick to the lift and no way to disengage it from within. His prey knew that he was being hunted. That lessened the disadvantage Ashe faced, but Jude was overwhelmingly armed, armoured and prepared for this little expedition whereas Ashe had entered the Ship with nothing more than the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet. Jude was fed and rested and had a good supply of food and water. He seriously doubted Ashe had the same. This would be a cake-walk, a single-shot death; the hallways of the Ship would be the killing ground, the anticlimactic last act of a drama that had started so violently the night before.

“Well you know what they say, Reverend Ashe,” Jude muttered silently as the lift car began making its return ascent, “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” Gabriel Ashe stood under the vaulted dome of the First Chamber, the door into the rest of the Ship at the far end of the room open invitingly. He looked at the slab of stone decorated with alien runes and glyphs. It could only be Angelic Script that He saw, for only the Angels of the Lord could possibly command this Chariot. He admired it, knowing that soon enough He would be able to read this text and speak the Angelic Tongues. This majestic chariot represented but one of the wonders of the Kingdom of Heaven that would be given unto Him. That it had been here waiting for Him for so long could only mean that it was the least of the Kingdom’s wonders. Gabriel Ashe made His way down the corridor at the back of this vestibule, knowing where He was to go just as the Angel had instructed. Behind Him the crystal egg ascended once more, but it was of no consequence to Him now.

As Jude descended in the lift to the inner hull of the Ship, even he who had helped capture or destroy so many alien artifacts throughout the other bitter campaigns he had waged, felt humbled by the majesty and grandeur of the Ship’s interior. He looked out over the airframe, the bulkhead walls lining the inner hull, the city-sized constructs that ringed the inner hull and was awestruck. Such a display as this pulled even at his heart, long since locked away so that he could be the best soldier possible. It stirred yearnings for adventure that he hadn’t felt since he was a boy. How could such a thing as this Ship even be built, he wondered, how could it stand up under its own weight, let alone fly? The time for his idle speculations and daydreams was over, for the lift car was now dropping into the inner hull and it was time for the hunt to continue. The lift opened up onto the deserted First Chamber. Control had taken the time to downlink the known specs of the interior of the Ship. Jude moved straight down the hall into the Second Chamber. It was a dead end; the as-yet undeciphered language lab left no hiding place and Jude was startled a moment when he realized that Ashe was not within. He turned around, racing back to the First Chamber. Ashe had nowhere to go. Jude chambered a round into his rifle, allowing the mechanism to make as much noise as possible so that the echo announced his presence to Ashe. Jude stepped back into the First Chamber and was astonished to see Ashe standing on the other side of the second doorway, the door rising shut. Jude fired, but all Ashe had to do was drop to the deck to avoid the shots. The door rose completely into its frame. Jude approached the door. It remained shut. This wasn’t possible. The SSE hadn’t yet been able to open this door, so how in the Christ had Ashe? Jude turned, noticing the keypad to the left of the door. It was covered with runic script and numeric glyphs and though Jude had seen these very same characters on several artifacts he’d acquired in service to the Defence Intelligence Agency, they made no sense to him. Nor could he understand just how Gabriel Ashe had been able to determine what sequence was needed, to open the now-sealed door before him.

Many mistake the end of chaos and the soothing of terror for the resolution of crisis. In fact, during a period of purgative change like that caused by the Ship’s Unearthing, the end of chaos is often merely the beginning of the crisis.

THIRTEEN

DESCENT

“The doors are now sealed,” The Minister said, “The Committee is now called to order. Let everything said within these walls stay within these walls.” He looked at the console screen before him then up at the faces of the Committee members seated before him, gathered for the Minister’s first meeting as Chair. It was a meeting at which a lot of recovery and catch-up would be played. The Night of Blood had resulted in the World Ship Preserve being sealed to all but heavily guarded and scrutinized supply runs. Now there was little chance of the Committee sending in a team to pillage the Ship. However, Colonel Jude’s disappearance inside the gargantuan vessel constituted the next best thing.

“There is pressing business on the agenda tonight,” The Minister continued, “According to the Chairman we have not had contact with our subsidiary operative since he entered the Ship in pursuit of Gabriel Ashe. We also have an increasingly rare item of equal import on the agenda: something that isn’t Ship-related. It is my understanding that our Liverpool facility has at long last succeeded in properly synthesizing the mimetic metal found so long ago at the Roswell crash site. Mister Chairman, I’ll invite you to address us first, given how urgent it was to order Gabriel Ashe’s execution. Madam Minister, you will have the floor following the Chairman.” As the Minister finished speaking, the British Minister nodded. The Chairman cleared his throat and spoke: