 
Dangerous Knowledge by Lloyd R R Martin

Thrones of Mars

Book 5

Dangerous Knowledge

Contents

Chapter 1 Death by Name

Chapter 2 Des Moines

Chapter 3 Boise, Idaho

Chapter 4 Comaro

Chapter 5 The Jedi Transition

Chapter 6 The Hilbert Transformation

Chapter 7 Zoo

Chapter 8 Is the Secret Out?

Chapter 9 Helix

Chapter 10 Clover Leaf Battle

Chapter 11 Vargas Returns

Chapter 12 Steve Luke

Chapter 13 Redstone Arsenal

Chapter 14 The Clan Almost Complete

Chapter 15 The Alamo

Chapter 16 Totem

Chapter 17 Phoenix

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The astronauts from Mars have returned to the Earth only to find devastation caused by the Tsunami from the Canary Isles – the Capital had to be moved to Chicago. Most of Florida was wiped out – including a lot of NASA. The re-entry was difficult to say the least. Now they are pretty well alone.
Chapter One

Death by Name

Preston Ashton looked briefly out of the window as the Earth drew nearer and nearer to his craft. A few hundred feet away he saw the second module piloted by Jake Jensen.

In monosyllabic tones Ash said,

'Drifting north.'

Curved multi-bladed rotors with simple rocket motors at their tips sliced through the air above the modules. Bigger rocket motors beneath them fired to slow the descent.

Long probes attached to the legs reached down, waiting to touch the Earth.

As a probe touched the ground a light came on in Ash's panel.

'Pythagoras, first contact.'

Seconds later, Jake said,

'Euclid, first Contact.'

One point five seconds later the rockets beneath the modules cut out.

Inverted cups on the ends of the legs touched the desert floor. Oleos within the legs further cushioned the impact of landing, and then levelled the modules up.

The dust settled around the two landers.

Jake finished the shut-down procedures. He turned to Galina Danilenko. They both smiled like they had not done in a long time. There was not enough room in the module for them to reach other, but they managed to touch hands.

She said,

'What is it that you are looking forward to most?'

Jake thought for a few seconds whilst he threw the last switches, and checked readings,

'I suppose it's driving through the outskirts of a city after dark. Looking at the houses with warm lights in their windows; knowing that there were people in those houses, and wondering what kind of people are living there.

It was early morning in Death Valley, the temperature was already climbing. As the returning astronauts emerged from their vehicles they felt genuine wind for the first time in over three years.

Ash pointed at the burned-out wreck that was once a pickup truck,

'Over there – what's that?'

As Ash climbed down the steps to the desert floor, Jake emerged from the second capsule.

'Christ, this looks worse than Mars!' he remarked as Galina pushed her head under his arm to get a view.

'At least there are no robots trying to kill us.'

'They are not needed out here ... how are we supposed to survive? No water, no food, not much shelter.'

'We are not alone.' Ash said, pointing to two figures near a burnt-out truck.

As Michelle dismounted from the truck her cell-phone rang. She knew it could only be one person out there – Semeramis.

'Hi.'

'Hi Michelle. Are you and Tom ok?'

'Yes, I think so.' Michelle looked at Tom, 'You ok?'

He nodded, holding his ribs,

'Slept in a funny position.'

'We are better than we would have expected.' Michelle said to the phone.

'Don't worry. Help is on its way.'

Michelle looked at the two conical modules on the desert floor.

'I think I can see what you mean.'

'No. they are the returning astronauts – they are also in need of rescuing. There are Marines on their way in to you.'

Hoshi Masuto followed Ash from the first capsule as the four astronauts made their way to the people by the truck.

Tom was standing alongside Michelle, he was having difficulty moving, and breathing was hard for him, so they stayed where they were.

As the four astronauts walked towards the truck, Michelle could not wait any longer. She ran to Ash, who took her in his arms. The warm embrace was welcome in the cool air. The red and white dress had certainly seen better days – it was not thick enough to keep Michelle warm, the shiver she felt could also have been excitement at seeing Ash again after all this time. They kissed passionately as Hoshi saw that Tom was in difficulty.

Jake, Hoshi and Galina sat Tom on a rock as he struggled for breath. He waved them away to signal that he thought there was nothing wrong. His breath came in short pants like someone suffering an asthma attack. Presently he smiled as he looked at his returned comrades.

'What the hell have you been up to?' he said to Ash.

Ash replied,

'You would not believe it.'

Galina heard sounds coming from the distance. She scanned around to see what it was. Presently she saw three black dots shimmering above the horizon. As they slowly drew closer it was soon recognised that they were V-22 Osprey rotorcraft.

The V-22 Osprey is a strange looking aircraft – it is like a normal aircraft, but with helicopter engines and rotors on the wing tips. These can be pivoted - so that the rotors first lift the craft straight up - and then move to give forward thrust, and it continues like a normal aeroplane. To land it must pivot the engine and rotor outfits to look like two helicopters, and it lands vertically. Up to 24 troops can be carried.

Inside the lead Osprey,

'Throttling back. Rotating engines to 60 degrees.' US Marine Major Nalini Singh prepared for landing.

As the gigantic engines on the wing-tips rotated, they began bringing the propeller discs closer to the horizontal.

As she turned above a ridge she saw her target.

Two of the craft stood off as Nalini skilfully landed in a cloud of dust and sand. She allowed the machine to move forwards during the landing procedure to keep abreast of the sandstorm her rotors were kicking up.

The six people by the truck watched in awe as the rotors were feathered, which meant that they kept turning slowly without kicking up too much sand.

The second aircraft came in to land behind Nalini. As it flared it threw more dust and sand forwards towards Nalini's aircraft. The rotors on the stationary aircraft did not help; the whole aircraft disappeared in a yellow cloud.

Galina looked at the two Ospreys as they came in to land. Far to her right she saw another dot appear. She pointed at this as the others looked on. The new dot was a lone A10 'Warthog'. By the time it could be recognised it had opened fire on the two Ospreys that were coming in to land. The rotorcraft did not stand a chance. The murderous fire from the 30mm Gatling cannons firing 65 rounds per second minced the Ospreys instantly.

Explosions and fires followed.

Nalini spun round in her seat to see through the open ramp what had happened to her comrades.

The spectators watched in disbelief as the A10 banked round for another pass.

... ... ... ... ... ...

An industrial complex just outside Des Moines was where Xanthros had established his new control centre. Most of his equipment, and his staff, had been lost in the Tsunami that wiped the Pan Handle off the map. All that remained of Florida and most of Louisiana was now just a series of islands with no infrastructure.

Two engineers, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, were offered the opportunity to move.

As he made sure the door behind them was firmly closed, Tweedle Dum said,

'Why move from Marshall to go – where?'

'Des Moines. I think they trying were to find somewhere obscure.'

'They certainly found it.'

Tweedle Dee shrugged his shoulders,

'But what operations are there? The Mars mission is over; they lost the whole crew, did they not?'

Tweedle Dum leant over to his pal, almost conspiratorially,

'I was watching the re-entry. Everything was going just fine and dandy – until insertion to orbit. Then things began to get screwed up. First we lost comms, and then the guidance computers seemed to lose the plot. After that we could only track them on radar for half of the time. We never knew exactly where they would appear from orbiting round the planet.'

'Did they crash?'

Now it was Tweedle Dum's turn to shrug,

'If they did we are not certain exactly where they were – their re-entry was off the scale; the computers could not compute the data fast enough to determine what the changes meant.'

'And who is running this new show?'

'Mission Controller Xanthros.'

'Are you going?'

'Might as well; there is no likelihood of future employment here.'

There was now a desperate shortage of trusted people who Xanthros could use to help him run his operations.

Xanthros watched on his monitors as the action unfolded. He was also in voice communications with the pilot of the A-10.

As he watched the first approach he said,

'Take out the elements likely to move away first.'

The pilot, Vargas, replied,

'Affirmative.'

Xanthros could see through the pilot's gun sight on one of his monitors as the A-10 began its dive towards the Ospreys lining up to land.

The Ospreys engines on the wing tips began to rotate, and kick up sand as the buzz of the cannon was heard.

These machines contained six Marines, plus medical and rescue equipment, and they cost the American taxpayer 71 million dollars each.

Vargas's voice was emotionless as he said,

'Fox Two.'

The Ospreys were destroyed in less than two seconds.

As the A-10 banked to the right the Ospreys crashed to the desert floor. The resulting explosions seemed to deaden everything – the smoke rose without a sound as the six spectators stood in stunned silence.

Xanthros's screens turned blue as the A-10 lifted its nose above the horizon. Then they went blank altogether.

Even the satellite overview closed down.

'Control to Bolter. I have lost visual.'

'Roger that. Moving to the north of target. Two pyramid shaped modules on the right of crash site. Six people moving towards the last Osprey; I missed seeing it in all the dust.'

'Take out the Osprey, and see if you can take care of the people on the same run.'

'Roger that. Lining up now.'

The murderous sound of the Gatling cannon came over the airwaves like tearing paper, but much louder.

Vargas called,

'Osprey destroyed. Six casualties. Collateral damage to modules.'

         
Chapter Two

Des Moines

A stubby square building off 64th Street, Des Moines was where Xanthros had set up his new Mission Control.

The enforced move from Florida was not easy. Most of the equipment that NASA had used to set up the original Mission Control was lost in the Tsunami that wiped out most of the State.

Des Moines was chosen because of its secure links to the contacts and people Xanthros needed to keep in touch with, and the availability of rudimentary launch facilities close by.

Xanthros walked across to the now dead monitors upon which he should be watching the A-10 as it carried out his orders.

Standing by the bank of monitors was Stix,

'They must not be allowed to get their information out.' Xanthros said quietly.

'Do they all have the information?'

'Probably not,' Xanthros replied, 'but we cannot take the chance.'

'Do we have any other elements in the area?'

Xanthros toyed with the monitor controls as he replied,

'Nothing in the immediate vicinity – but they are not going anywhere now that we have destroyed their only means of transport.'

He was getting frustrated by the non-functioning screens.

Stix looked around at the equipment in the room,

'You did well to get all of this out from NASA before Florida was hit by the tsunami.'

'Did I?'

'Well, yes.'

Xanthros shook his head as he said,

'Nothing got out of Florida. Not even people.'

The Gran Canaria tsunami had taken out most of the east coast of America.

Low lying states like Florida and Louisiana were hardest hit.

Most of Florida ceased to exist at all. All signs of civilisation had been swept away by the gigantic waves.

Stix said,

'The California operations must have supplied it I suppose?'

Xanthros seemed to be busying himself as he answered,

'All this was part of an already existing project.'

'What project?'

'Totem.' Xanthros turned to face Stix directly, he closed to his face, 'But I don't want to hear that name again, and do not say it to anyone else – remember there are androids employed here that may be programmed to react to that one word.'

Stix stood back in surprise at this sudden reaction.

Xanthros briskly walked away from him.

An attractive young lady came into the room. Edie moved with purpose,

'Doctor Xanthros,' Edie approached Xanthros, 'we have a development with Task Force Two Five.'

Xanthros showed no reaction as he led the way into a small room adjacent to the control room,

'Yes, Edie, what is it?'

'The new Senate House that has been set up in Chicago will not even look at giving funds to NASA for space research – they say there are bigger problems on the ground in the USA.'

'We cannot argue with that. But most of what we need is now underwater in the Gulf of Mexico.'

'Totem needs more equipment than we have here,' Edie waved a hand towards the room, 'The system barely works.'

'This is not MIT or JPL. We have to rely on our own resources here.'

'There are limits to what we can do.'

Xanthros pacified her,

'We only have limits we have invented for ourselves; if we were to fulfil our potential to the full, we would amaze ourselves.'

Edie knew that Xanthros was clever, and sometimes his thoughts were more than she could understand at first.

'That brings me to the reason I'm here now.' She decided to get back to the point, 'Task Force Two Five has been sent to Huntsville; but they have encountered a problem.'

'Did they get to Redstone Arsenal?'

'No. This happened on the way in.'

Xanthros switched on a large monitor. Google Earth appeared on the screen.

'Show me where they are.'

Edie pointed to a clump of trees on the screen,

'Their GPS puts them here.'

Task Force Two Five consisted of 17 trucks escorted by three Humvees full of US Marines. They were heading from Des Moines to the NASA facility at Redstone Arsenal, New Jersey.

As they approached the Appalachian Mountains on the I-70, just south of Pittsburgh, they came across a road block.

The lead Humvee was driven by Sergeant First Class Amadeus Shelby Goddard, Apple to all who knew him. Next to him sat Sergeant Kayden SG Frost. She had a long red pony tail hidden under her tan and grey Marine helmet. As soon as the obstruction came into view she stood up into the machine gunners' position.

Apple looked at the barricade.

'Can we crash through it?' he talked into his throat mike, everyone on the net heard.

Kayden replied,

'School busses and all sorts in there. And we don't know what is behind the base – could be explosives.' She cocked the heavy machine gun, and swung it from side to side.

As the convoy slowed to a stop, a distant voice came over the radio,

'Do you mean to tell me that they have blocked the Interstate?'

Another voice, more urgently this time,

'Vehicle on the right quarter.'

A camouflaged pickup truck emerged from the trees on their right.

A rocket propelled grenade was launched from its back.

The rearmost truck in the convoy exploded, preventing retreat by the convoy; the attackers wanted a stationary target.

Kayden swung her gun around, then let fly at the pick-up.

The heavy machine-gun bullets began by laying a track in the earth; Kayden moved the track to the vehicle, where ammunition and explosives that were carried in it, exploded.

As the convoy stopped, troops poured from the lead truck and the Humvees.

Kayden scanned the treeline for activity.

A machine gun opened up from somewhere to their left.

As she swung the gun around there appeared more trucks from the cover of the forest on the left of the ginger gunner.

The troops from the convoy took up boundary defence with mortars and heavy machine guns. The mortar men sent off tiny drones.

Before they could see the pick-ups the men on the ground found that rounds were going above them from the enemy; these were aimed at keeping their heads down.

On top of the heavy goods vehicles in the convoy there now appeared two men to each trailer. These soldiers quickly took up positions in prone positions – they were snipers.

Three groups of specialist soldiers moved carefully out from the front vehicles. These were armed with Lawes anti-tank missiles. Their task was to clear the roadblock.

Kayden opened up again with the machine gun, taking rough aim at the approaching pick-ups. Their return fire was ineffective because they were travelling over rough ground.

First one, then another of the pick-ups exploded. Rocket Propelled Grenades were launched occasionally, but none hit their targets in the main convoy.

Snipers took careful aim at people in the vehicles. They aimed through telescopic sights; they each drew a bead on the drivers. Because the vehicles were bouncing over rough ground the firing was not as accurate as required. But it was nonetheless effective. The high powered rounds sometimes entered the pick-up trucks' cab, hitting other people than the drivers – not always fatally, but usually with disastrous results; one vehicle had three people on a bench seat. The round hit the person in the middle, who was thrown into the driver, who lost control – turning the vehicle over.

The men with the mortars began firing, blind at first, then guided by the drones. The trails the pick-ups travelled down were identified, and mortared.

With the ground troops now laying down some concentrated fire the attacking pick-ups found that this was not the expected convoy of frozen food, so they decided to leave it alone. Without orders from a leader, the pick-ups turned and tried to run for the forest. But the mortars had begun to take the trails out – there was nowhere for them to go. Between the barrage laid down by the mortars and the heavy machine gun fire in front of them they were forced to lurch to their left (as they tried to make their way back). This brought them round to the front of the convoy.

As the pick-ups approached the head of the convoy the first elements of a troop of soldiers armed with Lawes rocket launchers moved into position to deal with the barricade.

The soldiers were already arming their weapons. All they had to do was turn to their left 90 degrees, and let fly at the pick-ups. The resulting series of explosions was enough to destroy every vehicle, even though some had not been hit directly.

Gradually the smoke cleared. The firing stopped, but the fires in and around the vehicles crackled and popped as ammunition went off.

The relative quietness was broken by three loud explosions as the barricade troop took care of the obstacle on the Interstate.

Sgt Kayden Frost looked carefully around from her perch above the lead Humvee.

'No further threat visible.' She called over the radio net.

Apple was already on the ground,

'Roger that.' He inspected the wreckage of the nearest knocked-out pick-up, 'They look like the local branch of The Malitia, Survivalists.' He reported.

Kayden replied,

'Not very good at it, are they?'

         
Chapter Three

Boise. Idaho.

Semeramis walked into a small coffee shop on main street.

'Regular capachino, please.'

The baristo replied,

'Certainly, ma'am.' And then turned away to make the drink.

The place was almost empty; only three or four tables were occupied. Semeramis sought out the most remote position, away from the other customers.

She placed the cup down, sugared the coffee, stirred, and looked around the establishment.

She then removed he cell phone from her purse.

Tapping on the machine she called Michelle's number.

'Hi. Everything here has gone horribly wrong.' The voice at the other end did not waste time with pleasantries. 'We have lost two of the Ospreys, and all of the people in them.' The voice was rushed – as if running.

Ash helped Michelle down the slope to the last Osprey. The other three astronauts had reached the machine - Jake was talking to Nalini, who had opened the pilot's door to look behind to see what had happened to the other two rotorcraft.

'I know.' Said Semeramis.

'An A-10 just shot them down.'

'I couldn't stop him. But I have sent him away now.'

Michelle stopped dead in her tracks. Ash stumbled on the uneven desert floor to stay with her.

'Pardon?'

'When I got news of the attack it was too late to save the Ospreys, but I managed to jam the video feeds in to Xanthros, and then interject a false transmission fooling him into believing that the mission has been a complete success.'

Michelle looked around the desert sky,

'I can't see the A-10.'

'I told him, as Xanthros, to hold off and await further orders, but I don't know how long he will wait.'

Michelle looked at Ash,

'We gotta get out of here.'

They both rushed to Nalini, who nodded in agreement. The pilot then turned back into the cockpit, and began start-up procedures.

Jake held out a hand from the door behind Nadini to help Michelle into the machine, quickly followed by Ash, who turned to help.

By now the giant rotors had begun turning.

Semeramis was also communicating with Vargas (as Xanthros), and Xanthros (as Vargas).

To Vargas,

'Maintain position three miles north of target area. Hold at 5,000.'

Vargas replied,

'Roger.'

To Michelle,

'Get out of there now, go south. The A-10 is three miles north of you.'

'OK, we're out of here.'

The Osprey lifted off in a cloud of sand and dust.

Three miles away the cloud was noticed by Vargas.

He did not wait for instructions. He banked the A-10 over on to one wing tip, and then began trading height for speed as he rammed the throttles into full power to closed on the lone Osprey.

Nalini flew the Osprey as fast as it would go in a climb, but that was not very fast.

Jake was strapped in the open hatch at the back of the aircraft, manning the heavy machine gun.

'Just give me a clear shot.'

Vargas was now covering the ground at an alarming rate. The aircraft was redlined at 450 mph; he was now travelling at well beyond that speed. At 1,000 feet altitude the A-10 began to shake. Aiming was impossible.

Jake saw a dot that was the A-10, he began to swing the machine gun round, but before he could even bring it to bear the Warthog shot past the Osprey.

Nalini kept the Osprey climbing as Vargas banked round for another pass. He was bleeding speed off in the turn – he wasn't going to miss this time.

As he came in for an attack Nalini did something unexpected – She stopped the Osprey still in the air, engines pointed upwards, and turned the machine to face the A-10. Vargas levelled the wings as he straightened up to face the rotorcraft. At one mile range Nalini opened the throttles on the engines causing the Osprey to rise straight up. Vargas had by now lost a lot of speed. As he tried to move the nose up to aim the cannon he found that he began losing too much speed; this meant that he could not keep pace with the rate of climb of the Osprey. As he passed below the rotorcraft Nalini called Jake,

'Coming below now.'

Jake knew he would not have long to shoot at the target; he prepared to take the tank-buster on as soon as it appeared.

Slightly off to the right, the A-10 was now moving on to one wing tip as it appeared. Jake let fly with the machine gun as soon as he saw it.

Things were moving so fast that he only managed to squirt a short burst at the grey machine.

Three bullets found their mark, producing holes in the right wing of the Warthog.

Vargas was taken aback by the pinging sound he heard as the bullets struck. He turned the aircraft on to its back as he pulled away from the Osprey.

Nalini then threw her machine into a violent corkscrewing move up and away from the direction in which the A-10 was headed.

'I think I know how to deal with this.' She said.

She levelled off at exactly 5,200 feet, and held the hover there.

Vargas was at about the same height as he righted the A-10. He looked at his compass, and then in the direction he expected the Osprey to be. But it was not there. He swivelled his head, and then strained to look straight up through his canopy. He moved the aircraft around to make sure his target was not hidden behind some part of his structure – but to no avail; the Osprey had disappeared.

Nalini knew of atmospheric layering in the air above the desert. She had noticed that the layering was most noticeable at 5,200 feet. She had disappeared into a mirage. As long as she stayed in this layer they would be hidden.

Vargas tore around the shallow, wide valley looking for the rotorcraft.

Nalini knew that the downdraught from the Osprey's rotors would eventually disturb the layer in which she had positioned the aircraft, so she allowed the machine to slowly drift in a roughly southerly direction.

By now they were some eight miles from the original landing site. Vargas had to extend his search pattern for them, but unfortunately they could not see him either, so could not take advantage of knowing where he was at any given time.

Ash asked Nalini,

'How long can we stay here?'

She looked at her instruments. Tapped a couple to change the displays, and then turned to him,

'About another twenty minutes.'

'Then what?'

'We fall out of the sky.'

'Not the desired result.' He quipped back.

'No.' she shook her head, 'We won't drop out of the sky. But we will then have to move on to get closer to fuel.'

He began to worry,

'But the longer we stay here, the odds of him finding us increase.'

Nalini had her hands full with the controls of the hybrid helicopter as she replied,

'And if we move he may well see us – we can't outrun him.' She thought for a few seconds – 'The only real chance we have is to run and hide.'

Vargas had by now dropped down to ground level in the hope of spotting the Osprey against the bright blue sky.

The A-10's wing-tips kicked up sand as he wove around the wide valley – he didn't know it, but he was now five and a half miles away from the Osprey; even when he looked into the right direction he would not see it.

Ash and Nalini decided that their best chance was to run and hide. As the Osprey dropped from its hiding place in the sky, Vargas was facing in the wrong direction.

Jake was hanging out of the open ramp with Galina; everyone else had a little round window to look out of as the air around them began to stabilize.

As Nalini began turning the engines to provide horizontal flight, Masuto called excitedly,

'There he is! Ninety degrees off the starboard side.'

Nalini banked the machine to port as it gained forward speed.

Galina looked to the right from her position on the ramp,

'Yes, I have him now. He's turning...'

As Nalini allowed the machine to drop in height, she said,

'I don't want to get too close to the ground, but by moving directly away from him cuts down on the movement that could attract his attention.'

Jake called from the rear ramp,

'We've got your back covered.'

He and Galina hung on to the straps by the ramp as they constantly scanned and watched the horizon.

The A-10 was still plan-view to them as Vargas turned, still looking for the Osprey.

Slowly, almost unperceptively, The Osprey moved away from the A-10.

Then Jake and Galina lost sight of their adversary. He was now nose-on to them. But he had not yet seen them.

Ash spotted a small range of hills off to their right.

'Looks like we may find some cover over there.'

Nadini nodded agreement, and turned the Osprey towards the hills.

As they crested the first of the hills they found that they were typical of everything in this desert – stunted and dwarfed.

But it was all they could get.

At less than 50 feet from the ground the sand began to raise a small cloud.

Vargas saw the line of hills, and decided it would at least make a break for him to look at some change in scenery. Just then he saw a small cloud of dust raise from the hills.

'This is worth investigating.' He said to himself. He forgot that the sound activated microphone would pick this up and transmit it.

Semeramis called Michelle,

'What's happening over there?'

Michelle was trying to watch Tom, who was not doing too well, when the call came in,

'Hi, Semeramis. We have been hiding from the A-10, I am not happy about saying too much over the phone – you never know.'

'I understand; I can monitor all communications from here; it is possible someone else could be doing the same.'

'Right, we are working the problem here; tracking possible, better get off.'

'Yes. Good luck.'

'Thanks.'

Michelle turned back to Tom,

'You ok?'

'Bit groggy.'

'You do look a little pale.' She said.

An Intercom call from Jake broke in,

'He's heading this way.'

By now they were only some six feet off the desert floor. The small hills around them were only just higher than the rotorcraft itself. Dust was raising all around them.

Vargas could now see the cloud getting bigger. Occasionally he saw what was causing the cloud, the camouflage of the Osprey was very effective in hiding the parts where the people were; but the big black rotors stood out clearly. Sand was swirling around them as they lowered the craft to the ground.

The A-10 was now only one mile from the almost stationary Osprey. Vargas switched the safety off on the GAU-8 30mm Gatling cannon.

'Can't miss.' He said.

The microphone transmitted this.

Semeramis picked it up, and called in Xanthros' voice,

'Control to Bolter. Abort mission, abort mission.'

         
Chapter Four

Camaro

'He said he would be here by eight.' Del Banco looked at his watch.

Mrs. Hapsburg looked out of the window,

'Things are not normal at the moment,' she replied, 'Anything could cause a delay.'

The small town of Winterset lay out before them as del Banco joined her at the floor-to-ceiling window. This outpost in Madison County was being used to monitor Xanthros' activities in nearby Des Moines.

Out on Highway 92, where it crosses the I32; near the Middle River, in Idaho, Styx was watching the sun rise in his rear-view mirror. Only three years had passed since he had left the Marines to work in the Space Administration, now he was running in a modified 1969 Camero between the Xanthros outfit and the Illuminate.

No longer a young man, Styx had retired from the Marines whilst still fit, think of a version of 'Roger Murtaugh', as played by Danny Glover in the 'Lethal Weapon' series of films; but with dreadlocks.

A vehicle appeared on the horizon; bigger than a car, but no eighteen-wheeler. It began gaining on him.

There was no enforcement of highway regulations since the tsunami, but Stix found himself keeping to the old laws as a matter of habit.

The vehicle kept on gaining. He couldn't see, but there were three pickups in this little convoy.

Gradually they moved in to catch up with Styx. Only when the vehicle pulled in front of Styx did he notice that there were two men on the rear of the truck.

When the pickup pulled into position directly in front of Stix the men in the truck picked up their weapons, and pointed them directly at him.

They watched him as the car began to drop behind them.

In the time since the tsunami, law and order in some parts of the USA took a wobble. It was soon realised that there could be problems faced by people moving between locations that may be through sparsely populated areas. To address this situation all vehicles had certain modifications added to them.

The car that Stix was driving that day had plenty of room in the engine bay. On the outside, all that could be seen were two small perfectly circular holes, one either side of the radiator. Inside the engine bay, either side of the engine were two .50 cal machine guns firing through the said holes. The fire from these weapons were synchronised to converge at 100 metres.

The pickup in front of Styx was only some 50 metres away when he opened up with both heavy machine guns.

The .50 cal. machine gun rounds entered the rear of the truck just above and inside the rear tyres, and then sliced through the flimsy machine. People in the rear were cut down as the bullets passed through to the front cab, and then on to the engine.

The occupants were killed instantly – if not by the bullets, by the resulting crash and explosion.

Styx swerved to avoid the wreckage as he pressed the accelerator to summon up the 350 horses in the Camero engine.

The chasing pickups were left wondering what had happened to their colleagues.

Styx powered down the blacktop to his meeting in Winterton.

Mrs Hapsburg looked across the room. It was 0923 when Styx walked in.

'Sorry I'm late, bridges are out, I think someone is trying to filter traffic.'

'A spaceman came travelling,' Mrs Hapsburg began, 'He has brought something back from Mars.'

'You mean some sort of disease?'

'No, this is more insidious than that.'

'How do you mean?' he looked at her puzzled as he framed his question, 'I have seen that Xanthros has been ruthless in order to deal with this thing.'

'And has he dealt with it?'

'Yes; I watched as he got confirmation of the results.'

Mrs Hapsburg looked sceptical,

'I'm not too sure.'

'What could possibly be worth all of this? You say it is not a disease, what else could be so devastating to warrant this type of action?'

She took a deep breath,

'Suffice to say that the result could be worse than warfare.'

'Whaaa?'

'But the effects could be alleviated by the tsunami.' del Banco said as he approached, 'however, there is another dimension to our problems.' He looked directly at Styx, 'You say that someone seems to be filtering traffic?'

'Yes. There are several bridges out in strategic places around Madison County. If you look at them on a map,' he referred to Google Earth, 'a pattern emerges.'

Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco looked at the display.

'We have intelligence that says your interception was not random.' del Banco said to Styx, 'someone out there is trying to get to one of us.'

Mrs Hapsburg nodded in agreement,

'This is not the first time someone has been intercepted.' She said, 'As you have seen, there is not a lot of traffic out on the roads. These people are selective about who to attack. They obviously know we have a facility at Harrisburg, but they also seem to know that we are in Des Moines, too.'

Styx looked at the two people before him,

'And how does this affect me? Is it something to do with the spaceman?'

Del Banco answered,

'We just do not know. But we need to- find out, and quickly.'

Styx knew these two people were Illuminate; and if they needed information on something that was happening out there, there must be something amiss – very amiss.

'There is an airport near a place called Red Oak,' del Banco continued, 'on the I-34. We have captured a vehicle from some of the local The Malitia. These are several counties away from here, so it will not be noticed if strangers are driving it.'

Styx began to smell a plot,

'What's that got to do with me?'

'We have put together a small team to pose as The Malitia. What we need is for you to go in with these people to infiltrate.'

'You need me to what?'

'Infiltrate, we need to know why these people are targeting our people.'

Styx was not thrilled,

'And I suppose that you think I would fit right in with these heavily-armed desperadoes?'

'I don't see why not.' Del Banco was holding his cool, 'You are a fully trained operative.'

'It may have escaped your notice, but a fully trained operative who may have been out in the sun a little too long – these Malitia tend to be somewhat paler than me; apart from the back of their necks;- they are rednecks. We do not get on very well.'

'You don't have to get on – just get in there and find out what they are up to.'

'That's if I can even get to – where's this? – Red Oak. They already tried to finish me off on my way in here, so if you were thinking of keeping this whole place quiet, I suspect that they now know about it. He waved his arm, and looked through the windows as if searching for a foe.

'So would you feel safer in here,' Mrs Hapsburg added, 'or out there?'

Styx thought for a moment, then turned to Mrs Hapsburg,

'I see what you mean.' He turned back to del Banco, 'I suppose what has happened to this country has changed things.'

'Yes, it has. But these people are behaving in an even more different way than you would expect.'

'The Malitia tend to be The Malitia; how can that change?'

'These people have a common purpose, and that is not only focussed on survival. Trust me, Styx, I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think you could do it.'

Styx looked displeased at del Banco, Mrs Hapsburg said,

'There is a good team waiting for you at Red Oak.'

Styx nodded to her as he turned and left.

He studied the details of his route from Winterset to Red Oak, eventually selecting a less trodden route in the hope of avoiding trouble.

The big Camaro raised dust as Styx drove in a general south-westerly direction.

He kept a wary eye on his mirror, and, sure enough a tell-tale cloud of dust showed that someone was driving along the same road.

Traffic was light since the Tsunami, and on these back roads there were even less vehicles.

Styx tried moving faster, but the road condition was not good enough to go at any speed – as he bounced about he thought to himself,

'If only I had stuck to the freeways.'

Just then a rather large hole appeared in the road ahead. He could only avoid it by swerving around, and out onto the dirt by the side of the road.

There appeared another, this time nearer to the side, allowing him room to be able to swerve and stay on the blacktop. Then what looked like two holes close together forced Styx off the road all together.

He stopped to look at the strange holes. These were no mere pot holes. The edges looked as if explosives had been used.

As he picked up a piece of discarded tarmac he was supplied with the answer.

There was an eerie whistling, and then an explosion in the field alongside the road, followed by another well behind the Camaro.

As Styx look in the direction of this latest explosion his gaze was directed down the road from whence he had come.

The dust cloud from other vehicles was now much closer – so close in fact that he could see there were several vehicles travelling towards him at speed.

A small puff of smoke briefly came from the rear of the lead truck, then a tell-tale whistle that Styx recognised from his years in action with the Marines – an incoming Rocket Propelled Grenade.

He didn't wait to see where it would land, he leapt into his vehicle. As he slammed the door the missile landed in the field into which he had to go in order to get around the holes.

The rear tyres spit dust as Styx put the pedal to the metal. The chasing pick-ups barely lost speed as they left the tarmac in order to drive around the holes – they had been here before.

The Camaro engine pulled the car along a lot faster than a pick-up when it hit the tarmac again. Black lines appeared as the wheels spun, and smoke mixed with dust as Styx accelerated away.

The men in the pursuing convoy didn't worry, nor did they slow down.

Styx looked in his rear-view mirror. He saw that there were five vehicles chasing him. As they regained the paved road he could only see the lead vehicle. He could just make out the shapes of men in the back holding RPGs and machine guns.

Another RPG exploded just ahead of, and to the left, of the Camaro. Another hole appeared – at least he now knew how they had got to be there. As he swerved to avoid this he switched on a small screen on the middle of the dashboard.

As the picture stabilised he regained the tarmac. The little screen showed exactly what was happening to the rear of the Camaro. A switch below the screen only moved either left or right. As Styx moved it a nudge to the right the picture moved to put the lead truck into the middle of the screen. A thin black line was drawn down the exact centre of the screen; this line was directly over the driving position in the pick-up.

Styx prodded a yellow button above the screen.

Inside the vast trunk of the Camaro say a six-barrelled M-134D-H mini-gun. Capable of firing up to ten rounds a second this machine gun opened up for less than two seconds as Styx held the button down.

Eighteen rounds hit the pick-up. All within a two foot circle at waist height to the driver. He was almost cut in two. The engine took several hits; any one would have been enough to stop it dead. The rear wheels seized up solid – petrol gushed out of the smashed engine, igniting immediately.

The second vehicle ran straight into the rear of the first wreck, causing a bigger fireball.

The third pick-up swerved, and managed to avoid the pile-up. A smaller convoy of three pick-ups now gave chase after Styx.

These vehicles were full of people bent on revenge for their colleagues. To this end they all began to sprout RPGs and assault rifles – all firing at the weaving, fishtailing Camaro as it accelerated away.

Styx in the Camaro felt the percussion effects of the explosions around him, the dust raised by assault rifles firing on automatic drew wild lines in the ground. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone got lucky.

Another two blasts directly in front of his car caused Styx to swerve violently. This took him off the main road, on to a side track. Looking at the little screen he found that he could see all three trucks at once. A little red glow told him that the minigun was still live. A quick flick moved the thin aiming line towards the rear truck. As it reached this, Styx pushed the yellow button, and moved the switch to move the minigun through its full 90 degree arc – thus raking the five pick-ups with ten rounds a second.

The rest of his journey passed without issue. Styx met up with the people in Red Oak.

         
Chapter Five

The Jedi Transition

The Osprey was now flying low. Nidini knew that it was not much use as an evasive manoeuvre or hiding; the giant rotors, now being used as propellers, prevented the aircraft from getting low enough to hide above the flat terrain over which they were flying, but coupled with the dull grey colour of the machine, it might just make them difficult to spot.

Sitting up front with Nadini, in the co-pilot's seat was Ash, one of the astronauts with The Secret.

Galina Danilenko appeared at the door behind them,

'Tom wants a word.' She said to Ash.

'Ok.' Ash undid his straps, and followed her into the rear of the aircraft.

As he stepped into the cargo/passenger bay he saw Tom Collins laying on the floor,

Ash looked straight at Michelle,

'You ok?'

He knew that she had been through the same experience as the sick Colonel on the floor.

'I'm fine.' She replied, 'But Tom isn't doing too well.'

'How you doin'?' Ash asked him.

'I've been better.'

The aircraft bounced gently in the warm desert air. The sun was getting quite high now, and the heat from the ground below caused this turbulence.

Ash had to steady himself as he took one of the canvas seats that were running along the fuselage sides.

'Hang on in there, buddy. We'll get you to a hospital as soon as we can.' He looked up at Galina, who Tom couldn't see from his position. Galina did not look hopeful.

Tom thumped Ash's leg to get his attention,

'Hey! What the hell happened on Mars?'

'What do you know?'

'I know that we were monitoring the systems in the living accommodation, then all of a sudden everything went haywire – pressure dropped, the airlocks started giving wild readings – or none at all.' He coughed before being able to continue, 'That was after we lost Mark Singleton – and what happened there?'

'Whoa, there bud, one question at a time.' Ash glanced around him. Galina was sitting opposite; Jake was crouched on the open ramp keeping a keen eye on their rear. 'I'm not surprised that you got wild reading from your instrumentation – one of the robots burst out of the accommodation without bothering to open the doors first.'

Tom tried to sit up,

'What?'

Ash smiled,

'Yes, but that was not all – he was after us.' He indicated Galina, Hoshi and Jake.

Michelle looked shocked,

'Whaaa?'

Tom knew there was more than meets the eye about this latest statement,

'What about the First Protocol?'

Ash was fairly matter-of-fact with his answer,

'They were sent a patch that overrode it.'

'What, all of them?'

'Yes, Even the Scutters on board the Phoenix.'

Tom struggled to raise himself on one elbow, shaking his head he said,

'How the hell did we not know about all of this? I was Capcom for most of the time – none of this came through.'

The aircraft's internal loudspeaker system came on,

'This is because the communications were scrubbed.' Semeramis said, 'I picked up on it, but could not do anything about it because it happened in real time.'

Galina was startled; she looked around as she said,

'What the devil happened there?'

Michelle said,

'That's Semeramis, she's helped me before.'

Tom needed more,

'We lost one of our guys on Mars, what happened to him?'

He was referring to Mark Singleton.

Ash briefly looked at Jake, hanging on the ramp in the airstream.

He shook his head as he said,

'We found his helmet in a cave that used to be filled with ice; it looked as if he had been exposed to too much heat during the melting process.'

Semeramis then came back,

'That was no accident.'

The aircraft began to pitch and roll as Nalini began to fly around features on the ground.

She came over the comms,

'Sorry about this, people, but it might be a good idea to strap yourselves in; we are approaching some terrain where we can hide, but it means that I will have to throw the aircraft about.'

They were approaching an area known as Rainbow Canyon – also known as Star Wars Canyon.

The route carried them on a twisting, turning flight along the Jedi Transition. The vast columns they flew by once supported a massive roof over the whole area. This dropped millions of years ago leaving columns and canyon walls looking as if they had been painted with horizontal stripes.

There was no conversation as the occupants took up their positions. They were all looking out of the windows at the fascinating scenery as Nalini skilfully weaved through the valley.

All that was except Tom Collins, he was in no position to appreciate the scenery.

Galina looked at him with concern. She knelt beside him and noticed that he was fighting for breath. Ash had returned to the cockpit, Hoshi joined Galina, felt Tom's chest, and then tried to hear his breathing by placing her ear down on his chest. Michelle reached for the Marine first aid kit. In it she found a stethoscope. Hoshi took this, and began sounding Tom's chest.

'Pneumothorax.' Was all she said as she moved to the other side, 'Both lungs have collapsed.'

She began exploring the first aid box.

Michelle said,

'What are you doing? What do you need? Is there anything I can do?'

'I'm looking for something I can use as an intercostal catheter; a chest drain.'

Michelle took hold of the first aid box, and steadied it whist Hoshi examined the contents. The aircraft swung and swayed; making their jobs difficult.

Michelle looked directly at Hoshi and said,

'Are you quite certain about this?'

Hoshi looked at Tom,

'We have to do something; he has both lungs collapsed. If I don't do something to drain off the air that has got between his lungs and the chest wall he will suffocate.'

Galina said to Michelle,

'Could you ask the pilot to smooth it out a bit?'

Michelle nodded, and then moved to the door between the bay and the cockpit. She spoke to both Ash and Nalini,

'They are going to have to perform a surgical procedure on Tom back here, could you please smooth it out a little?'

Ash turned to look into the bay – he saw that Hoshi and Galina had rigged up a drip, which Galina had to keep hold of. He glanced at Nalini, then back to Michelle,

'Do you want us to land?'

Michelle passed the question on to Hoshi.

She replied,

'It would be at least advisable.'

Ash addressed Nalini,

'Could we put down somewhere?'

'What I am concerned about is the amount of dust put up by landing – but I have a plan. You don't need to get out, do you?'

'No.' Ash replied without consulting anyone else – or understanding the question.

Nalini called as she put the Osprey into a gentle turn,

'Roger that. Watch this.' She looked at Ash, 'Landing in two minutes.'

The grey machine climbed to the top of the canyon side. Nalini searched for one particular column. As she found it she began rotating the engines of the Osprey until they pointed almost straight up, with the giant rotors swirling around on a horizontal plane. The machine slowly approached the flat top of the column. Most of the downwash fell down the sides; any dust kicked up from the top of the column was washed to the base, down to the desert floor. As the Osprey settled on the top of the column there was no dust in the air around her.

On the floor of the passenger bay the three women got to work on Tom Collins. His shirt was removed, Hoshi kept checking with the stethoscope,

'I think our best chance is with his right side.' She told the others, 'It looks like we may get away with just one drain if we get this one right.'

Nalini shut the engines down to reduce vibrations. Jake climbed on to the top of the fuselage to better keep a lookout.

Inside the aircraft the patient was still fighting for breath, but was fully conscious.

'Roll him a little to you.' Hoshi asked her nursing staff.

She then prepared a carefully selected section of flesh, turning to Tom she said,

'This may smart a bit, Tom, but try not to flinch too much; I would normally anaesthetize the area, but I don't know enough about these medications in here.'

'At least we will have still conditions.' He commented.

'Right.' Hoshi said, nodding to her nurses as she moved in with the scalpel.

The small incision did not issue much blood. The catheter was inserted with no fuss or bother. Air was heard to issue forth, and Hoshi breathed a sigh of relief. And so did Tom, who began to breath normally again.

Galina looked towards the rear of the bay, at the empty ramp,

'Where's Jake?' she asked.

Ash, at the front of the aircraft, twisted round in the co-pilots' seat to reply,

'He's out on top.' Thumb signifying direction, 'Want to go tell him what's happening?'

Galina simply nodded as she made her way to the rear ramp.

Clambering up on to the almost flat top of the strange looking helicopter, Galina found Jake standing, legs wide, between the giant rotors. The black blades stood six feet above the fuselage top, and Jake was using them to quarter the vast emptiness as he scanned the sky.

'This where you are.' Galina did not want to scare him with an unexpected shout.

'All quiet out here.' He reached into his pocket, 'but look at what I found in the chopper.'

Jake produced what looked like a tangle of wire and a small box.

Galina looked puzzled by this.

'It's an old MP3 music player.'

He unfolded the wires,

'Here, you'll like this.'

He handed her one of the earpieces. As he tapped the little square box she fiddled to put it in her ear.

He nodded to her,

'Ready.' He placed the other earpiece in his ear – this meant that their heads became quite close together as well as being connected.

He pressed the machine, music began playing – a Joan Armatrading song from 1976. The words,

"I'm not in love, but I'm open to persuasion."

Flowed in their ears.

They looked into each others' eyes, and embraced, kissing passionately.

Ash climbed part way up to the front of the fuselage so that he could address the couple on the roof,

'Hey, you two.' He called, 'We would like to start the engines, if you don't mind.' He pointed to the rotors above their heads.

They climbed down after one last look around for any searching aircraft.

Nalini started the engines; the take-off was clean; once again the small amount of dust was washed down the sides of the pillar.

She took the Osprey up to one thousand feet in order to give Tom a smooth ride.

Five minutes after take-off Michelle's cell phone rang. It could only be Semeramis.

'Hi. We have managed to stabilize Tom, but he needs medical care quickly.'

'I thought as much. You're nearest, and best hope, is Edwards.'

'Yes, we are heading there now.'

'Can you put me on speakerphone?'

Michelle leaned into the cockpit,

'Nalini, can we put this through the aircraft's loudspeaker system?'

Before anyone could respond, Semeramis's voice came booming over the loudspeakers.

'Hello everyone, I know you have all been through hell and back – some even further.'

Tom turned his head, and looked at Hoshi as Semeramis continued,

'You will no doubt be aware that there is someone out to stop you reaching civilization. The attack in Death Valley showed how far they will go to prevent your secret from getting out... I suggest that your best chance now is to split up. Think – "What do they not want us to do?" – then do that.'

Hoshi was first to speak,

'I want to stay with Tom.'

Ash turned around from his position in the co-pilots seat. He addressed his comment at Jake,

'We are the only ones to have actually seen it, so we have to split up.'

'Yes, I agree.' Jake said. All of this was heard by Semeramis, who was still on the line.

'People on the run tend to look less suspicious if there is a man and a woman.' She said.

Michelle looked directly at Ash,

'That's fine by me.'

Jake looked at Galina,

'That's ok by me. How about you?'

'Yes.' Galina replied, her soft Russian accent coming through, 'If I don't stand out too much.'

Semeramis spoke again,

'I suggest that you go to New York State. We need to know how badly it has been hit.'

Galina had a question,

'How are we to communicate the information?'

'The old emergency number 911 still works. When you ring in you will probably be put through to an automated reply service saying that "... they have been swamped with calls, and you are in a queue – waiting time at this moment is 270 hours." Whilst this is being told to you, you must press five. This will put you through directly to me.'

Galina then said,

'That is all very well, but how are we to get to New York State?

Semeramis was on top of it,

'You are going to Edwards Air Force Base – I have arranged a flight to Newark from there. Newark is not open, but a military flight should get in there, they even got a vehicle for you.'

Ash was next to speak,

'And what do you have in mind for us?'

'There are people in Iowa who would like to speak with you.'

'Iowa?' exclaimed Michelle.

'Yes, a little place near Des Moines to be exact.'

She looked at Ash, who was leaning half in, half out of the cockpit. They exchanged puzzled looks.

Tom settled back, Hoshi tended to him.

Moments later they landed at Edwards Air Force Base.

Once on the ground the astronauts were issued with new clothing – and a plan.

Of all the choice of shirt, Jake had to select the most colourful Hawaiian number to reflect his personality.

The plan was simple; disperse to New York State and Iowa, plus Tom to hospital.

         
Chapter Six

The Hilbert Transformation

'The people of North Carolina look to be re-organizing.' The Marquis of Libeaux said to Gerald

The Marquis (pronounced – Markee) was noticeable for his shock of pure white hair, lozenge-shaped spectacle lenses, and long plaited beard. Other than that he did not stand out in Scandanavia.

Gerald was Gerald.

As he spoke to Gerald he was thereby allowing the whole of his family to hear what he was saying.

Ninkharsag and Romanov were in an office on the outskirts of Toronto, del Banco and Mrs Hapsburg were having coffee in Winterset, Madison County, Io.

Rockefeller was in a small boat in what was left of New York harbour.

These groups all had one thing in common; they were all accompanied by a man named Gerald.

That is not to say that someone called Gerald was sitting in with them. These Geralds were identical. They were not what they seemed; they were all androids – the possibility of making them look different existed, but it meant that each one would have been vastly more difficult to produce, so they all ended up looking exactly the same.

All participants in this strange conference call were connected by the Geralds using a transformation of Hilbert Space; The Hilbert transform of g(t) is the convolution of g(t) with the signal 1/πt. It is the response to g(t) of a linear time-invariant filter (called a Hilbert transformer) having impulse response 1/πt. The Hilbert transform H[g(t)] is often denoted as ˆg(t) or as [g(t)]∧.

'I can't see much evidence of recovery here.' Rockefeller scanned the disrupted skyline of New York with binoculars. 'I can't see any safe place to land out there, either. Some people who look like homeless zombies with no sign of vehicular activity at all.'

Gerald looked at the buildings; the normal, well-known, New York skyline had changed.

The once familiar skyline was now ugly with buildings blackened by the fires that raged uncontrolled across the city after the Tsunami.

'No signs of life in the buildings, what is left of them.' he turned to Rockefeller, 'What say you we launch a drone?'

Rockefeller lowered his binoculars; the stiff breeze hardly moved his close-cropped hair, his thick rimmed glasses dropped back down on to his nose as he replied,

'If we can't make landfall ourselves, that is the next best thing.'

They moved towards the rear of the boat, which continued to move slowly through the water.

Rockefeller thought they might invite the interests of people on the shore; but there was no attempt to go out to greet them.

As Gerald readied the drone for launch Rockefeller took the opportunity to continue his scan of the docks. He could then see why there was no welcoming committee. What boats were left in the harbour had been crushed to splinters by the heavier metal vessels which had been carried from positions at sea into the harbour. The ones that had not crashed into the harbour had been sent down the streets of New York.

'Ready to launch, Mr Rockefeller.'

Rockefeller looked at the drone. It was a slender machine with the lines of a glider, but he knew it housed a very efficient little jet engine inside.

'Should we stop the boat?' Rockefeller asked.

Gerald looked at the instruments on the dashboard in front of the wheelhouse before replying,

'At less than five knots I don't think we need to bother.'

'OK.' Rockefeller nodded.

Gerald moved the machine to point over the side of the boat. A slender ramp slid out from under the drone.

Gerald looked around the boat, and then paid particular attention to the rear of the drone, he then called,

'Clear to launch drone.'

Rockefeller replied,

'Clear to fire up drone.'

This was not strictly necessary; there were only two of them on board, but training runs deep.

Gerald tapped a button on the dash, whilst holding down another key with his thumb. A gentle whine came from the drone, the noise slowly raised in tempo. The machine rocked slightly from side to side, but it was not discernable if this was due to the gentle wind, movement of the boat, or the build-up of power within the machine.

He released his thumb from holding the key that controlled the brake.

The Ghost grey drone shot off as if released from a catapult. Its flying speed of 35 mph was reached long before it got to the end of the ramp. As it soared away Gerald reduced the throttle mainly to cut down on the noise emitted. The reconnaissance drone was almost silent at normal operating throttle – at heights above 500 feet it could not be heard at ground level.

'Take it up to 1500 feet.' Rockefeller said as the drone began its journey towards New York.

Gerald was now below decks watching three screens showing what the cameras on the drone could see.

Rockefeller joined him; they both kept up a running commentary on what could be seen for the benefit of the rest of the family.

'Approaching Verrazano Narrows Bridge.' Gerald joggled the cameras to look to the left to see the damage done to the buildings of Staten Island. 'Nothing left. The Tsunami must have been above these buildings.' He banked the drone to move closer to the structures. 'Here are some condominium blocks. Up to the third storey there are no windows.'

Rockefeller added,

'The wave must have taken them all out. And what about the people living in these – they must have been underwater. The long wavelength of the Tsunami would keep them under for twenty minutes.' He turned to Gerald, 'Can't see much point trying to explore the downtown area, fly along to the dock area at Newark.'

The screens show a largely intact New York skyline; but as they looked to the right a closer inspection showed debris and detritus swept from the harbour into the bases of the skyscrapers.

Gerald said,

'The Statues's still there, but Ellis has taken a hit; it has been scoured.'

Ellis Island was devoid of any structures whatsoever.

'Let's see how far inland this goes on for.' Rockefeller said.

The drone turned left after passing the Statue of Liberty, between Liberty Island and Ellis Island, to overfly Jersey City.

The streets were all the same; empty of life, and strewn with wrecked cars, rubble, and sometimes an occasional boat.

The brick and concrete buildings had more or less survived.

Rockefeller said,

'There are a lot more blank spots than before.'

Gerald added,

'If we go a little lower, you will see that we could probably fly down these streets. You could not do that before; the power cables across the whole city have been swept away. The surviving buildings have no windows and no power, most of them are probably unsafe – the whole area has been rendered uninhabitable.'

The drone was now only feet away from the rooftops of the devastated buildings.

Bodies could be seen in unexpected places; hanging off the transporter bridge as if they had been dumped there, giant, strong road signs had been twisted into grotesque shapes, and captured bodies, other pieces of road furniture that had survived also displayed corpses of the unfortunate.

Rockefeller said to Gerald,

'Wheel round more to the west; I want to see what has happened to Newark International.'

The drone gained a little height as it executed a slow turn to the right.

The concrete spread of Newark International airport lay before them on the centre screen, slowly expanding to cover all three.

There were no aircraft. The central terminal building used to have vast areas of glass to enable the thousands of people to watch the aircraft. These windows had gone – but not the people, or the aircraft. The Tsunami had picked the aircraft up, and thrown them into the high windows at the people inside.

As the drone approached the terminal building, Gerald let it drop almost down to ground level, knowing that there were no obstacles into which it could fly.

As they looked into the wrecked building they saw what looked like an aircraft scrap yard, with bits of planes stacked up against the far walls. Parts of the planes had been pushed through the roof at this point. This allowed the water to get out even faster than it came in.

After the water had subsided, and took with it thousands of gallons of aviation fuel, the injured and dead inside the heap continued to bleed; the result was to make the concourse run red. There was not much on the outside of the pile, but gallons had seeped down to the floor.

'Jesus wept.' Rockefeller whispered. 'There has been mass destruction at the airport – it is usable again as a landing facility, but if you intend to use it as a hub,' he took a deep breath, 'you will need to bring in your own infrastructure.'

He turned to Gerald,

'Let's see how far inland this thing goes.'

Gerald consulted the drone's compass; he selected to fly out in a north by westerly direction.

'There seems nothing down there to save.' Remarked Rockefeller.

The Marquis said,

'How far inland are you expecting to go?'

'We don't know, but the level of destruction here is uncompromising.'

'I presume you were anticipating using Newark International to provide aid?'

'Yes, but there is no-one down there to help; if we are to rebuild, we have to start further out.'

The drone was now over the Irvington area, and the destruction seemed less complete – houses were still standing intact, some power lines had survived.

Gerald called out,

'Vehicle; there's a vehicle down there.' He pointed at the left screen, 'It is moving, and we have found the extent to which life has been snuffed out.'

The drone circled above the vehicle.

'A pickup with trailer.' Commented Rockefeller, 'Scavengers. They are looking for food probably.'

Del Banco added,

'Or anything worth stealing.'

The Marquis countered,

'In that situation nothing is of any value. Their food supplies will have suddenly dwindled – the material they may have had access to in supermarket freezers will have gone off because there was no electricity. Money has no value – the only currencies they are bothered about are food and fuel for their vehicle.'

Ninkharsag touched Romanov on the sleeve,

'Are these natives friendly?' she asked.

Romanov shook his head,

'Probably not; they are hungry, desperate people who have seen more death and destruction than we can imagine. Not only have the places they live and work gone - but the whole structure of their society has been smashed.'

Del Banco commented,

'One day the most powerful person in their world was the President, the very next it was a mechanic who could keep their vehicle running so that they could get food.'

         
Chapter Seven

Zoo.

Leaning out of the cab of the yellow pick-up Melissa pointed to the sky,

'There's a goddam, mother-lovin' airplane up there.'

Randal stopped the machine,

'Does it look hostile?'

She looked askance at him,

'How the hell should I know?' She looked at the drone, 'It ain't spittin' no fire.'

Three people got out of the vehicle; Melissa, McKinley and a bloke in hideous Hawaiian shirt - they knew that if it was aiming at anything, it would be the truck.

The smell of the sea was still strong, although the ground was now dry.

McKinley looked through his binoculars,

'Cain't see no missiles.' He observed.

The drone obligingly banked round, and moved a lot closer to them. Gerald was getting a better look at them.

'Must be a recce job.' McKinley said.

Melissa looked at the houses around them,

'Ok; maybe we could look at these places, whilst we are here.'

All three of them moved off towards the nearest house. The doors and windows were gone, they walked straight in.

'Don't bother with the freezer,' Randal said, 'They ain't had no electric since the wave, go for the tins.'

It only took a few minutes to strip all of the tinned goods from the wrecked house.

As they placed their gains in the rear of the truck, McKinley looked for the drone – it was gone.

'Might as well check out a few more houses.' Melissa said as she made her way across the street, followed by her colleagues.

One house was boarded up; the side they approached from would not have been hit by the tsunami, so the doors and windows had been spared.

Melissa walked round to the back. It looked as if the boarding here had not been disturbed either.

McKinley joined her. He tried a couple of the boards - secure.

He looked around the back yard, now devoid of most of its furniture, including any fencing. He found a length of metal, and began prising the boarding from around a convenient window.

All three climbed in through the window. The place was dark and dank inside; there was very little ventilation. Only Randal had a flashlight, so they stayed together as they went straight to the kitchen to look for tinned goods. They found none. Melissa walked around the dark house looking for anything that could be of use to them in their striving to survive.

The two men continued looking for any storage elsewhere in the house, a connecting door to the garage gave them hope, but even the freezers in there were empty.

Melissa came down the stairs as the men walked back into the main part of the house.

'Ain't nothing here.' Exclaimed Randal, as he closed the door behind him.

'I know.' Melissa said. 'And I know why.'

The men looked surprised. The darkness behind Melissa hid what she had found.

McKinley tried another cupboard,

'Can I have some light in here, buddy?'

Randal turned his flashlight towards McKinley.

The cupboard was bare.

Melissa moved into the only room with natural light; where the boarding had been removed.

Randal shone his flashlight towards her, at the same instant she moved into the natural light. As she moved to one side the two men saw what she had discovered.

Hiding behind her in the shadows, clinging on to her hand was a small boy. In his other hand he held a toy pistol. The little lad looked terrified. Randal was first to speak,

'Where did you get him from?'

As if it mattered.

'Same place I got his brother from.' She beckoned towards the shadows, 'Come on, Taylor. It's ok; we mean you no harm.'

Another boy appeared.

'They were trying to hide upstairs. They have been surviving on the tins of food they found in the kitchen. Luckily the water supply has held out.'

Randal dropped to one knee to address the boys,

'What's your name?'

They shied away, Melissa replied for them,

'This here is Tobias,' she indicated the boy with the gun, 'and this is Taylor. They are both seven years old. They don't know where there parents are, or anyone else – they is totally alone in this godforsaken world.'

Randal said,

'We'll have to take them back.'

McKinley said,

'With us?'

'Yes,' Randal answered, 'They can shelter with us until we find out how to help them.'

Melissa comforted the boys as they checked other properties in the area. No other survivors were found.

As the five people returned to their base in the commandeered St Cloud Elementary school near Orange Reservoir, Taylor and Tobias became more settled, but Tobias would not let go of his gun.

'Who are you going to shoot with your gun?' Melissa asked him. He looked a little puzzled at this direct question, he didn't answer at first, then pointed it at McKinley, who didn't see it.

Melissa smiled at the young boy, and he smiled for the first time.

When they arrived at St Cloud they all made their way to their temporary accommodation on the third floor. They moved about as Tobias and Taylor looked out of the window. They could see the giraffes moving about across the road – this fascinated the boys.

When the foraging crew had finished their return procedures they made their way across to the zoo with the largest portion of the supplies.

As they pulled into an area surrounded by buildings in various conditions due to the floods they were greeted by Jake Jensen.

Jake was looking after the rebuilding of the zoo, many within the group thought it to be a waste of valuable and scarce resources, but Jake could see other benefits.

Taylor and Tobias were taken around the zoo project by Melissa and Galina. The flooding had by now subsided, the emergency accommodations in the multi-storey car parks been taken down, most people had returned to what they could recover of their homes. Here, 15 miles from the ocean, the tsunami had caused damage commensurate with severe flooding. People fled to high ground; the multi-storey car parks by the zoo offered the opportunity to take your vehicle to higher ground without leaving the neighbourhood.

In one corner of the top floor there were a small group of RVs, like a gypsy encampment. This was where Taylor and Tobias were taken. This small group were from out of town; Randal came from Omaha, Melissa came from Lincoln, Nebraska, and McKinley hailed from Kansas City. They had decided to stick together until they could work out what had happened, and how to best deal with it. The common ground they all shared was zoological; they all had a speciality in animals – breeding, caring for, and mending them. Randal was not connected to animals, he was a mechanic.

The twin brothers soon settled in to the almost nomadic life. The animal specialists worked with the zoo authorities getting the place back to some sort of order, Randal helped with reconstructing the enclosures in the zoo. They had lost quite a few of the animals; the lions had eaten most of them. Of the aquatic species, most had fared ok, but had now gone missing – the fresh water species had not fared well, the salt water brought in by the tsunami killed them all. Every last one of the Kangaroos had escaped; but they will adapt and survive in the forests surrounding the zoo. The giraffes had also escaped – but they seemed to know that the best source of the food they liked was at the zoo, so they came back.

Taylor and Tobias worked out which of the animals were suitable to play with; most of the apes were too strong and unpredictable for them, but the smaller furry animals were always glad of some human interaction.

Galina and Jake Jensen were working in the hamster houses, mainly cleaning up; they had the boys helping them. They were tasked with keeping the residents occupied whilst Galina and Jake sorted out ways of repairing water damage.

The food gathering mission they had been on when they came across Taylor and Tobias shows that things were a long way from normal; there was no money, and food was always in short supply. The rest of the country was not yet ready to send supplies in to the stricken areas. The shops and supermarkets were no longer functioning, so the group had decided to work as volunteers to get the zoo back to at least being secure for the good of the animals.

Randal and Melissa were stacking food supplies from another forage mission into one of the many roofless storage sheds.

Randal looked around at the collection,

'I think they should have enough now, and the zoo is a lot more secure; about time we thought about moving back closer to home.'

'Yes, it would be nice to get back.'

McKinley entered the room,

'Hi, What's going on here?' he said.

Randal placed another case on a shelf,

'We were just thinking it is about time we moved back home.'

McKinley took a case from the pick-up,

'Just the two of you?'

'No; I thought we should go back in convoy.'

'That's just peachy. You two are making decisions for all of us now, are you?' McKinley threw the case on to a shelf, he was getting annoyed.

Melissa looked shocked.

Randal replied calmly,

'No one is making decisions for anyone. We are all free to do whatever we want.'

McKinley turned to face Randal directly,

'And I suppose you and the little lady here want to run off together?' he didn't look at Melissa.

'Don't talk stupid, McKinley. We are all better off if we stick together.'

'And what about the boys?' McKinley meant Taylor and Tobias.

Melissa answered,

'They seem quite settled here; I don't see that we could benefit them by taking them away.'

Randal said,

'You seem to have taken them under your wing, Melissa. Is there anyone here who could look after them?'

She thought for a moment,

'That is a problem. They've not got really close to anyone – apart from the animals.'

McKinley saw this as someone else's problem,

'And you thought you could just go and leave them here?' he turned to Randal, 'Don't be so goddam selfish.'

Randal pushed a case away from himself as he said,

'Who are you calling selfish?'

McKinley responded,

'You are;' Anger raised his voice, 'You just want to run off back to where you will be safe.'

'SAFE!' Randal shouted back, 'You think the area around Omaha is safe?'

'Safer than New York;' Melissa tried to defuse the situation, 'The straight streets were acting like compressors. The tsunami hit the front, was funnelled by the buildings down streets, where it reached supersonic speed, and ten stories high. When it came to the end of the street it obliterated everything.' She waved an arm in the direction of the city, 'there is no point going that way.'

McKinley spun to face her, closing the distance between them,

'That don't make Omaha the safest place on earth.'

Without warning, Randel took hold of McKinley's shoulder, and pulled him away from Melissa, saying,

'And what is there here?'

McKinley shrugged off Randal's grip,

'Something to build on.' He said as he pushed Randal.

'Build on this.' Randal said as he threw a punch at McKinley.

McKinley ducked as he countered with a blow to Randal's stomach.

As Randal bent double, McKinley chopped the back of his neck, causing Randal to fall.

McKinley briefly faced Melissa as he then quickly made his exit.

Two days later two of the three RVs were preparing to depart.

McKinley approached Jake Jensen,

'Jake, we done here?'

'Guess so, Galina has found a family who are happy to take the boys in until they can find out what happened to their parents. Things are more stable now, Time we got back home.'

'I guess I'd better tag along with you.' McKinley said more as a statement than request.

'Yeah,' Jake nodded, 'I guess we may need some help along the way.'

As the three RVs moved off, twin boys appeared to wave them off, Tobias ran forward, and gave Galina something wrapped in a cloth. As the vehicles picked up speed she opened the present. Inside she found his toy pistol.

The plan was to meet a USAF aircraft at a local airport the other side of Dover.

At the Roseland turnpike the little convoy hit the I280, where they could now begin to move in a north-westerly direction towards the appointed rendezvous.

As they began to settle down for the journey they were overtaken by a Lincoln Continental doing over 100 mph. the limo slammed its brakes on. Randal, driving the lead RV, knew the road to be clear of traffic; there were no other vehicles around. Nevertheless he habitually checked his mirrors before changing lanes to move around the Lincoln.

He got a shock when he saw four pick-up trucks bearing down on him. The RVs were not fast vehicles. In order to conserve fuel they were travelling at the old national speed limit of 55 mph. In fact, they may not go much faster and remain stable.

The pick-ups formed a curve behind the RVs. The Lincoln weaved to prevent the RVs from passing as it continued to slow.

As the vehicles stopped armed men and women poured from the pick-ups.

Three men approached to rearmost RV.

The armed man pulled the door open, and pointed his gun menacingly at the occupants. He stopped abruptly when he saw the man who was sitting behind the wheel.

He shouted at the driver,

'McKinley!' he did not look pleased to see him, 'Where the fuck have you been?'

         

Chapter Eight

Is the Secret Out?

It was getting dark as Ash and Michelle reached the facility at Winterset.

The establishment was housed in an old church building, upon finding all of the machinery within, Ash commented to Michelle,

'What is all this doing here?'

She just looked at all of the heavy machinery around. Three or four men stood operating the equipment. Presently one of them called across to Ash and Michelle,

'You need the office, buddy.' As he indicated the direction in which they were to go.

They turned right along an alleyway through the machines and benches.

Ash noticed some pieces of semi-finished equipment that seemed to look familiar in some way, but did not linger to find out more.

The office door was closed. Ash knocked and waited to be asked in.

A man called,

'Enter.'

They went into the small office to find a lone man by a computer consul. He rose to greet the astronaut,

'Welcome to Winterset, Colonel Ashton, Doctor Romero. My name is del Banco; I would like to introduce you to Mrs Hapsburg, who is upstairs.'

He moved towards the door. All three of them took the stairs to an upper floor. Here Ash could see more strangely familiar equipment, and more machinery.

They moved into another office before Ash could ascertain what was going on here.

Bigger than the other office, this one seemed to have printing capacities; Ash presumed that the schematics for whatever they were doing were generated here.

Mrs Hapsburg rose from her chair, held out a hand to Ash and Michelle, her right hand shook Ash's firmly, the left took Michelle's. She turned to Ash and said,

'It is a privilege to meet someone who has actually walked on the surface of another planet – not just our satellite, the moon, - but another actual planet.'

Good manners dictated that Ash responded kindly,

'Thank you, ma'am.'

He wanted to say – 'What the hell is going on here? This is not any NASA project.' – but didn't – yet.

Del Banco made coffee.

As it was served Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Please, take a seat, and let's get down to brass tacks.'

Michelle was trying to place her accent – maybe some form of German? Austrian perhaps.

The four of them took seats around an old-fashioned draughtsman's drawing board. This was a very heavy piece of equipment, used in the pre-digital age to draw up designs and blueprints. This large panel was now mounted in a level horizontal plane, and provided a variable height table.

Mrs Hapsburg began the proceedings,

'May I begin, Colonel Aston,' she looked at Ash, 'by saying that we know that you have been having trouble because of what you found on Mars.'

Ash was incensed by this,

'Having trouble – having trouble. That's putting it mildly. This whole mission has been dogged by one catastrophe after another.' He looked briefly at Michelle, 'and none of them accidents. We nearly lost Mary-Jo whilst building the ship – and then we lost at least three other people. The robots turned on us after we tried to find what had happened to Mark Singleton, and have been trying to kill us every step of the way home.'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Yes, we know.'

'You know? How much do you know?'

'We know everything. We have been watching all along – and there have been things which we do not agree with.'

'Try looking at it from my side, lady.'

'Don't worry – we have been doing.'

'Even when we got back here we were immediately under attack from some maniac in an A-10.'

'Yes, we know all about that, too.'

'Are you all in some sort of ...' Ash hesitated, looked around, 'Say, what is going on here anyways?'

'We tend to work as separate entities;' Mrs Hapsburg explained, 'normally, that is.' she looked around the room before continuing. 'I was truly sorry to hear that one of our number was taking extreme measures against the mission.'

'You might simply call it extreme measure; to these people it was a matter of life and death.' Michelle interrupted.

'I know that. We tried to reign in our renegade, but...' before she could continue Michelle interrupted again,

'Why don't you just use his name?' she cast a glance at Ash, 'we all know it is Xanthros you are referring to.'

'Yes. Xanthros, like all of us, knew there to be something on Mars. It has been so long now that any accurate information about it has been lost a long time ago – but deep down inside we knew something important was there.'

Michelle looked startled.

Ash was surprised,

'You mean the whole mission was on a whim?'

Del Banco said,

'Not exactly; we came in on the mission at first to be able to monitor developments, but it was soon realised that the proposed landing site was near an important area.'

'I thought you said that you didn't know what was up there?'

'We didn't. But we knew about our origins on Mars – and our infiltration into your people must have passed on snippets through interbreeding.'

Ash looked askance at Michelle, she asked,

'Have they lost the plot, or have we?' she turned to Mrs Hapsburg, 'Did he just say "...our origins on Mars."?'

Mrs Hapsburg took a deep breath,

'When Mars had an atmosphere our ancestors looked at colonising it. This was a long time ago, so any details have been lost in the mists of antiquity. But we have always had the nuggets of information about this. When Mars lost its atmosphere we looked at Earth. The first thing to do was to change the local inhabitants by bringing in the ability to think rationally.'

She looked at del Banco. He nodded. She continued,

'The first thing they did was introduce a strain you know as Neanderthal.'

Michelle was trying to keep up with this,

'But they died out thousands of years ago.'

Mrs Hapsburg replied,

'They were meant to. The purpose of bringing in the Neanderthal was to insert the DNA of a free thinking, sentient being into the population.' She surveyed the silent couple before her, 'Do you know that you both have about 2% Neanderthal DNA? But each person has a different sample – to the end result that there is still almost 85% Neanderthal DNA spread out across most of humanity. They did not die out, they infiltrated the emerging humans. That is why humans are the only beings that love a mystery.'

Michelle said,

'And this is the big secret?'

Del Banco answered,

'Yes, Michelle. Coupled with certain manipulations through history, we have monitored and tried to steer human development. Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were a bit too much - but otherwise we have steered you from self-destruction. Humans are the most developed beings we have found – but that is mainly because we managed to prevent you all from wiping yourselves out – granted, Africa has slipped through our control, but if this information comes out we fear that we would lose all semblance of control – with disastrous results.'

Ash looked at del Banco, then Mrs Hapsburg,

'And you two are involved in all of this?'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Yes – you could say that.'

'I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.' He picked up his cup as he continued, 'Who else knows – I thought it was a closely guarded secret.'

'Oh but it is, Ash. Oh but it is.'

Michelle chipped in,

'Well I didn't know – and still don't.'

Mrs Hapsburg replied,

'Trust me; you are better off not knowing.'

Ash wanted answers,

'If you guys know, how many other people know?'

Del Banco seemed to be counting before he said,

'We are eight, then there of course is Jake Jensen.'

Mrs Hapsburg added,

'And Gerald.'

'Of course - Gerald. But should we count him?' del Banco said, 'And how do we quantify him?'

Ash looked puzzled at Michelle.

'We know a Gerald, don't we?' Ash said.

'Yes.'

Del Banco added,

'You may be surprised to learn that there is more than one of what you call 'Gerald.''

Ash and Michelle looked puzzled as del Banco continued,

'The android you refer to as Gerald has been replicated. These machines are very good at repetitive work, so they continued producing the one being – now referred to as Gerald – even by they themselves.'

Just then the door opened, and Gerald entered. Del Banco continued,

'Of course, we and they have to differentiate one from another; this for instance is G57/29K.'

Gerald 57/29K spoke,

'Sorry for the interruption, but I have information from Mr Rockefeller in New York.'

He placed an open laptop on the table.

Ash and Michelle moved around to be able to see the picture, provided via Gerald's Bluetooth capability. He began to explain, mainly for the benefit of the visitors,

'Mr Rockefeller is on a boat in New York harbour. He has sent out a drone as far as New Jersey, this is live feed from it.'

They scanned the scene. It was one of devastation – but at least the buildings were still standing, although there was no movement at all.

Then they saw a bright yellow pick-up truck. The vehicle stopped. People alighted, and looked up at the drone.

Michelle was first to notice the flamboyant shirt worn by one of the men below.

'Could that be Jake?'

'Who else would wear such a shirt in the circumstances?' Ash replied with a wry grin.

As the drone pulled away Gerald explained,

'The drone must retreat because there is a danger of it being shot down.'

Ash wanted to know,

'Is there any chance of communicating with the people on the ground?'

Gerald replied,

'I'm afraid not. This particular type of drone does not have the capacity to contact the people it is watching.'

'Pity.'

Mrs Hapsburg spoke via Gerald,

'Rockefeller, can we have a look at the city itself?'

Gerald 57/29K spoke in the voice of Rockefeller,

'Ok. It is about 10 miles from Manhattan now, swinging round now.'

The drone began a climbing turn to the east.

Less than five minutes later the Hudson passed below. The once familiar jagged skyline of skyscrapers was no longer familiar, and seemed a lot more irregular than normal.

On closer inspection it looked like smaller (by New York standards) buildings on the waterfront had been hit hard. They had been hit by a wave that was five or six stories high, travelling at close to the speed of sound, and with a wavelength of two or three miles. It was the wavelength that gave the Tsunami its power; that weight of water travelling at such a high speed hit the waterfront with such force that the buildings on the front were almost picked up, and thrown into the skyscrapers behind as if they were made of Lego. The combined destructive impact brought down more than a few of the lofty buildings. The whole of the financial district was obliterated. Millions must have perished in the first few seconds.

The little drone climbed to 5,000 feet. Details of the devastation were hidden from this height.

Mrs Hapsburg looked directly at Ash as she said,

'The people who have suffered here are mainly gone forever; but the country; and almost every country in the world will be reeling from the effects seen here for many years to come.'

Silent nods showed agreement. She continued,

'And the information you bring would not help the situation; or the people who have been hit with all of this.' She waved a perfumed hand towards the screen, 'Would you add to their suffering by giving them the information you have brought back from Mars?'

         
Chapter Nine

Helix

The vehicle Styx found was not quite what he expected.

'We have made some modifications.' He was told by Souichi, the Japanese mechanic.

Some subtle changes had been made to the Ford pick-up. These changes had been done by experts – but you would never know it; they had the appearance of an amateur outfit.

The first thing he saw was the big red and white striped flag denoting the Malitia. The general condition was unkempt – it looked like a little TLC was needed, but this belied the work that had gone into improve the vehicles' capabilities.

The side panels and rear tailgate seemed a little bulkier than Ford had originally made them.

'This was not exactly as we found it.' Souichi said, 'All these panels have intelligent reactive armour.'

'You're kidding me!'

'No; it ain't full Chobham armour – you need to be a tank to carry that stuff. But it will stop bullets up to 50 cal – if anything heavier than that hits it; like an anti-tank armour piercing round, it explodes; cancelling out the piercing element.'

'Where the hell did you get this technology? Remember that I am supposed to blend in with survivalists who cobble together whatever they can.'

'This stuff has been developed for the military by civilians in factories all over the US. These are ordinary people with extraordinary jobs.'

Styx shook his head as he walked around the vehicle. He bent down by the rear wheels to look underneath.

'This suspension, been uprated has it?'

'Just like you would expect.'

He climbed onto the open back,

'How is it that I smell Humvee?'

'Lots of these parts were developed for the Humvee.'

Styx inspected the mounted minigun,

'Can this fire forwards?'

'No need. There's another on top of the cab for the passenger.'

He pulled a cover over the gun, and then dismounted over the rear tailgate. As he hit the ground he noticed that the letters FORD on the tailgate had been retained, but on the original they were embedded in the metal – now they were painted on.

Moving round to the front of the vehicle Styx said,

'Let's pop the hood, and see what's under here.'

Soiuchi reached inside the cab, and pulled the hood release lever. Styx opened the hood.

'Interesting.' he said, 'This looks like it was built out of second hand parts.'

'We like to give a bit more punch – this is the most powerful hemi we could put in here, but we didn't want to give the game away by dropping in a brand new shiny unit. Of course we put a new motor in, but we have distressed it to look worn and old.'

Styx closely inspected the engine bay,

'Looks pretty crowded in here.' He commented.

Souichi placed his hand in the bay as he said,

'That's probable because of these bad boys.'

Styx looked at the object he was patting. Nestling in the corner Styx had not noticed the breech of a .5 inch heavy machine gun. Then he noticed another one on the opposite side. Souichi said,

'We would have liked to install miniguns in here, but there was nowhere to put the ammo bins.'

Styx bent down to look at the front of the engine, and then inside where the radiator used to be,

'I'm surprised you didn't fit a 20mm cannon in the V of the engine.'

'What do you think this is? A Messerschmitt 109?'

'What happened to the radiator?'

'Too vulnerable up front like that; this time we did go for second-hand parts. We got hold of a set of radiators from a Bugatti Veron; these are much smaller, and can be installed around the car.'

Styx closed the hood shaking his head,

'Ok, now I'd like to meet my team.'

Styx walked into a side room. Here he found his new team.

Jay, tall and thin, he was in dire need of a haircut – it was long and red; because of this his nickname was blue. He carried a shotgun and sidearm, with a belt of ammunition slung over one shoulder.

Grace was standing by a window. The light reflected from her shoulder length auburn hair, emphasizing the colour - but she did not have the same hair problem as Jay. The rounded forehead gave her an intellectual look - the cheroot she was smoking gave an air of distinction.

Introductions over, Styx did not tell them of his secret agenda.

The quartet set off to find an element of the Malitia.

They did not have to go far; they were travelling on the empty freeway when they saw, coming towards them a big truck. The articulated tanker was flying a strange flag. The vehicle was pursued by five pick-up trucks, some of which were flying the same flag as Styx.

'This is our chance.' Styx said as he spun the truck round in the four lane highway.

Now facing the same direction as the other vehicles, he began to give chase, but some half mile behind the tanker.

The tanker belched black smoke from the exhaust chimneys as the driver floored it.

The chase was having difficulty keeping pace; they were beginning to spread out.

Styx was having no such problem – the V-8 hemi engine had stupid amounts of power to spare. The rear tires spun as Styx put the pedal to the metal. He began gaining on the tanker.

Jay was in the back of the pick-up with Grace. He moved to the 50 cal machine gun that was mounted on a central pillar.

Styx opened the rear window of the cab, and called to Jay,

'Go for the tires.'

Jay threw back a reply with some disdain,

'Yeah, right.'

He did, however wait for the cab of the tanker to pull level with their truck.

As it did, Souichi looked across the median at the cab. He saw someone lean across the tanker driver with an Israeli machine gun.

Styx threw the truck across the four lane highway to put the gunner off. Unfortunately it also put Jay off. His hair flew wildly in the wind as he tried to bring the 50 cal to bear.

The tanker's cab gunner fired wildly at Styx – he had no chance of hitting anything with such a short weapon. Jay did not have such a problem.

He stitched an ugly line of bullet-holes along the side of the trailer.

Styx was glad they were slightly ahead of the tanker as it exploded. Rails, pipes and ladders flew off the machine in all directions; the fireball almost reached the pick-up truck. The trucks following the tanker instinctively braked at the sight of the explosion.

Styx stopped the truck at 90 degrees to the original direction of travel as the smoke cleared. There was not much left of the tanker. The cab section had been blown clean off the machine, and rolled forwards before coming to a rest to the left side of the road.

The lead truck of the convoy that had been following the tanker raced to the cab section, but found the inside had been incinerated before getting away from the fireball.

Styx drove to the section of the median that had been blown out by the tanker, and then joined the convoy.

As the first trucks pulled alongside Styx, he dismounted to be greeted by a tough-looking survivalist who brushed right past him. He was heading towards Jay, who was still on the truck, standing by the 50 cal.

'What the fuck do you think you are doing, you dumb fuck.' The man shouted at Jay.

Jay looked down at the man as he took hold of the 50 cal,

'Say whaaa?'

'You stupid bastard! You destroyed our tanker.' He pointed agitatedly at the wreck, 'That was carrying our fuel.'

'Why, then, was he running away, dummy?'

'We had him nailed.'

'Did you not notice that he was faster than you?'

'We could have caught him.'

Jay laughed as he replied,

'When? - When he ran out of fuel? Just shows how stupid you are – chasing a fuel tanker hoping that he will run out of fuel before you do. Have a word with yourself, dummy.'

The man made a move to use the shotgun he was carrying. Jay swung the 50 cal. Styx hit the man with a rabbit punch from behind; felling him.

Jay moved to the edge of the truck as he called to the man on the ground,

'And if you took the trouble to notice, the tanker was not carrying anything – it was empty, you dumb smuck.'

Styx confirmed,

'He's right. Where is the fire? The fumes exploded – but there was never any fuel; that's why you couldn't catch him.'

Another man walked across to Styx. This man held out his hand,

'The name's Helix.'

Styx took his hand.

'Styx. Thought you needed some help there.'

Jay stood by the 50 cal, watching the rest of the Militia as they drew up.

Helix looked at the flag on Styx's truck, then back to Styx,

'Where you boys from?'

'Red Oak, Indiana.'

Helix nodded,

'Montgomery?'

'That's the one.'

Helix walked around their truck, inspecting it,

'Someone has put a lot of work in here.'

'A lot of military people have had to find other employment.'

'Mind if I look under the hood?'

'Sure.' Styx waved at Grace, who was sitting in the drivers' seat, 'Pull the hood, Grace.'

The front of the bulged hood popped up. Styx lifted it.

Helix leaned forward to look into the engine compartment. His eyes bulged with surprise as he explored in silence. He pointed towards the left side of the V-8 engine,

'Is that what I think it is?'

'A Trusty old 50 cal. We thought it better to put it there to balance the one on the other side.'

Helix quickly looked across to the other side of the engine compartment.

His hand ran along the heavy machine gun, feeling for the feed system,

'Where's the feed?'

'In the cab; we thought it might be useful to be able to reload on the move.'

Helix smiled as he shook his head. He looked around at the assembling trucks; he turned back to Styx.

Two brothers, Lucca and Jack, took a close interest in the new arrival; they carefully examined Stix's truck.

Quietly Lucca said to Jack,

'This is one hell of a piece of machinery.'

'Yup; do you think it could be a Pinkerton?'

Lucca ran his hand along the bodywork as he said,

'One thing is for sure – It was put together by professionals, despite the obvious attempts to make it look shabby.'

Grace was doing something in the back of the truck when she heard this. She waved Jay to come over to her,

'These two seem to think we may be Pinkertons,' she warned him.

'Do you want me to take them out?' he responded.

'That's a bit extreme.' She said.

Jack was very pushy as he approached Styx,

'You working for the government?'

Before Helix could intervene, Lucca supported his brother by pushing Styx into the side of his vehicle.

Jay jumped down from the rear of the vehicle, but as he attempted to take on Lucca, Jack saw what was likely to happen, and intercepted him as he jumped down.

People began to gather.

Styx rebuffed the attack by Lucca,

'Wha you talkin bout, boy?'

Just as Jack and Jay came crashing down alongside them.

Helix moved in close to Styx as he said in a threatening manner,

'He's got a point – just how did you come by such an expensive vehicle?'

Styx slowly replied,

'One bit at a time – like Jonny Cash; one bit at a time out of many factories.'

'Whaa?' Helix said.

'My friends and I built this here vehicle up from parts we liberated.'

Lucca looked into the engine compartment,

'Who the hell just happens to pick up a matching pair of 50 cal machine guns?'

Styx looked the man straight in the face as he replied,

'Arsenal contractors, stupid.'

Jack pushed Jay to the ground as he joined in,

'You mean to tell us that people can just walk away with guns and shit?'

Styx replied,

'Of course not, but when things began to break down just after the Tsunami hit, it became easier to get round the security.'

Jay regained his feet, and tried to attack Jack, but Helix put his arm in front of him to stop the lunge.

'Hold on, now.' He turned back to Styx, 'You telling me you stole this equipment?'

'That's about the size of it.' Styx looked around at the now gathered crowd, 'Of course, we had people in the right places to gather this equipment.'

Helix had a thought,

'You mean people in defence?'

Styx could feel the atmosphere relaxing,

'Nearly all.'

'Any of your contributors from defence worked on a thing called Totem?'

         
Chapter Ten

Clover Leaf Battle.

Amadeus Shelby Goddard broke radio silence to call Redstone Arsenal,

'Task Force Two Five to Foxtrot Charlie. Final approach – ETA 60 minutes.'

In Winterset, del Banco also picked up the message,

'That's our call to action.' He said to Mrs Hapsburg.

'Let's just see if we can check on Styx before we leave.' She said, moving towards one of the consuls.

'No' he said, 'That's not a good idea. He's undercover, and must not be disturbed. We have to get this shipment over 1,000 miles to Redstone Arsenal, so let's get a move on.'

Ash and Michelle followed in silence. Michelle kept casting querulous glances at Ash as she tried to process the information she had just received.

As they walked out to the street Ash noticed the puzzled expression, plus the lack of conversation,

'Now you see the depth of my problem. Given all that has happened since only makes the decision more difficult.'

She replied,

'It isn't difficult for Xanthros.'

He thought for a moment,

'That's true – I'm only glad to be here with people who also know the secret.'

They walked out to the waiting car, which was parked alongside a seven and a half tonner; loaded and waiting.

The two vehicle convoy moved off to the des Moines airport, where they met up with a C-130 Hercules military transport.

As Mrs Hapsburg looked at the grey beast she said to del Banco,

'Why are they unloading the truck? Surely it can drive straight into that vast hold?'

Del Banco shook his head slightly as he replied.

'That won't work, I'm afraid. Yes, it was originally a military transport; but this is not the standard C-130. The name given to these conversions was Spectre gunships. There is still room for cargo inside – but not enough to take lorries in.' - he pointed at a long barrel sticking out of the side of the plane, 'The inside of these gunships was now mainly occupied with outward firing armaments.'

'What did they send us this thing for?'

'Very good of them, I thought.' Del Banco replied, 'We have to be grateful for anything we can get these days; - and you never know when a little heavy armament will come in useful.'

She looked sideways at him, shook her head and sighed.

Material loaded, the two passengers took their seats on the AC-130.

The noise level rose as the engines were started, Ash, Michelle, Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco were forced to wear military helmets to protect their ears from the din of high power turbine engines.

The aircraft internal communications came into the helmets, allowing everyone to hear exactly what was going on. The sounds at first seemed so loud they thought voice communications would never penetrate the overbearing noises of a military aircraft; but when someone spoke the sound was manipulated electronically to overcome the high background racket. To this end the voice came across piercing to the extent that it seemed to lower the temperature around the ears.

The vibrations, noise and temperature seemed to be trying to outdo each other as the big transport lumbered towards the runway.

Lined up on the runway centre line the pilots opened up the throttles, causing the noise level within the aircraft to raise beyond hearing – they could all feel the noise penetrating their body's organs through their skin and flesh.

As the vibrations reached their skeletons the aircraft began to move along the runway. The unpredictable bouncing made the original vibrations feel almost welcome with their rythmatic throbbing – it was as if the people on board could cope with the vibrations because they were regular. Now they also had the bouncing of an accelerating aircraft hurtling down the runway to contend with.

It always feels like an achievement when the ground vibrations stop. This means that the aircraft is airborne – even the engines sound and feel happier.

The mood on board almost relaxed. Men began undoing straps, and moving around.

Outside thin wisps of clouds reminded the people on board that they were moving and climbing. Bodies had become used to the vibrations and noise – but ears had to be protected at all times; communications were impossible without the equipment within the helmets.

On the empty Interstate the head vehicle of Task Force Two Five, was being driven by Goddard, he had told the base at Redstone Arsenal of his position, intentions, and estimated time of arrival.

Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco in the Spectre gunship picked up on the information, and were acting on it by flying to meet up with other elements.

So did the Malitia waiting in the foothills of the Appalachians.

Somewhere to the south of Pittsburgh the convoy that was Task Force Two Five moved towards a clover leaf intersection as the interstate snaked through the wooded area.

Goddard stuck his head out of the cab window of the lead Humvee to smell the pine-scented air.

They were about to pass under a bridge when he saw some activity on the bridge. There has been very little vehicular activity up to then – so to see six or eight vehicles in the same vicinity made him think.

As the last vehicle in the convoy passed under the bridge Goddard looked in his rear-view mirror. He saw what he thought was a car going off the bridge, crashing onto the carriageway below - then another.

On the bridge a pickup truck nudged another car over the edge. In all four cars crashed down on to the road below; the exit was blocked.

People on the bridge began firing machine guns at the convoy, but it was now getting out of range of these hand-held guns.

In the fast-moving convoy the occupants were alerted to the situation. They began returning fire with heavier guns that had the range to do some damage – but they were being fired from moving vehicles, so were not as accurate as they may have been. Only the rear-most vehicle had any chance of inflicting damage. This was a soft-skinned armoured car type vehicle with a turret-mounted heavy cannon. This let fly at the bridge with a rate of fire just faster than one shell per second.

The first shell fell short of the bridge. The second hit the parapet, sending more debris on to the road below. The third shell hit a pick-up truck on the bridge, but the rest of the shells landed harmlessly behind the road.

The convoy now approached a slip road to their right. There were vehicles on this road, they looked to be fixing to join the Interstate – but in the opposite carriageway to Task Force Two Five, which meant that they were on the wrong side of the road, but this did not matter because there was no other traffic. On the backs of three pick-ups were people taking aim at the vehicles in the convoy.

Careful aim is taken at the drivers in the heavy goods vehicles; they have no cover or protection from the assault rifles pointed at them.

On the rear of a pick-up a man stood with what looked at first glance to be a flag. On the flag was written one word – 'STOP'.

In the convoy, four articulated vehicles back from the lead, there was a Marine on top of the trailer. He was holding an XM 214 micro-gun. Somewhat clumsy as a hand-held weapon, this multi-barrelled Gatling-type gun had been adapted to be man portable. He swung it to his hip, and took rough aim at the three pick-ups. A three-second burst spewed out almost 200 rounds. The Marine leaned into the weapon as he fired it to counter the effects of the recoil.

The effect on the pick-ups was immediate and conclusive. They seemed to explode as the bullets hit them. The rear one caught the hail of bullets first. When the driver was hit, he involuntarily pulled on the wheel, taking his vehicle away from the convoy. The second one held the flag, a stray bullet or ricochet hit the gas tank. The vehicle shot towards the convoy, but the median rail stopped it. By the time the bullets were reaching the lead vehicle the micro-gun was firing at max rate; it's six barrels now spinning at full speed. The bullets raked down the back of the vehicle. Three men standing were knocked over the side. A series of ugly black holes appeared in the cab roof before rupturing the engine hood. The driver had been hit; he was dead – his foot slammed down on the gas pedal. Steam and smoke began to pour out of the engine compartment as the car sped down the empty highway.

Back on the bridge one man watched in awe as his comrades met their fate when they had tried to communicate with the convoy. He walked calmly over to his pick-up, selected his weapon of choice, and went back to the parapet. The weapon he had chosen was a long, high powered snipers rifle. The Marine with the mini-gun was still in position, although moving quickly away. The man on the bridge wasted no time bringing his gun to bear; he took careful aim at the Marine, who was checking the mini-gun, with his back to the bridge. He was an easy target; outlined by the white roof of the trailer upon which he was travelling. There was not much noise on the bridge; the sound of the convoy was almost gone now. A vehicle or two had engines quietly ticking away, but there was no human conversation – only the slight breeze as the man squeezed off a single shot. The sound of the rifle firing was very loud; the sound reverberated around as if it didn't want to leave. But the bullet did. Travelling at almost 1,000 mph the snipers bullet broke the sound barrier as it left the rifle – this was where most of the noise came from. Five point three seconds later it hit its mark. The Marine was caught just above the waist on his right side. He winced as he fell. The mini-gun fell to the trailer roof, but was still attached to the man. The shooter on the bridge watched as his target was hit. The Marine held his side. The Kevlar body armour had done its job – the bullet did not penetrate.

Goddard watched in awe as the front pick-up sped past him. He followed the line of the highway in front of him. Another bridge appeared. Then to his horror he saw that this bridge also had vehicles on it, and they were behaving just like the other bridge – first one, then another car was pushed over the edge – onto the carriageway the convoy wanted to use in a few minutes.

In all, five cars impacted on the roadway.

Goddard turned to Kayden Frost,

'How many cars have these guys got?'

'A few less now.'

Any further conversation was prevented by a large explosion off to their left.

'Whaa the f...?' Goddard exclaimed.

As he stopped the vehicle another explosion hit the ground on the opposite side, and the whistling of incoming shells was heard between the crump of explosions all around.

Kayden Frost hit Goddard on the arm as she looked out towards the high ground to their left.

'Shit.' Was all she said.

He looked at what she was pointing at.

Emerging from the trees they saw the long barrel of a heavy gun – a very heavy gun. Slowly, almost unperceptively, the barrel was followed by a main battle tank. A puff of smoke appeared from somewhere to their left signalling another round being fired from another tank.

'Holy crap,' Goddard called as he saw more tanks, 'I'll call this in.' he grabbed the mike from the dashboard, 'Task Force Two Five, Task Force Two Five. We have been stopped on the Bullinge Intersection of the I 93. Experiencing some heavy artillery and tanks here.'

'What are your intentions, TaskForce Two Five?' came back a confused voice.

Goddard and Kayden looked at each other, and then at the gathering tanks – there were now five on the surrounding wooded hills. After what seemed like a long time Goddard said,

'Who the f...?'

'That don't seem like one of ours.' Kayden said.

Xanthros replied before any further confusion could be brought to bear,

'Task Force Two Five, Redstone Arsenal here. Do you require assistance? Over.'

Goddard stared at Kayden in disbelief, he shook his head. She grabbed the mike,

'Task Force Two Five to Redstone, yes. What can you do for us? Over.'

'Can't tell you over an open line, but we know where you are, we have elements in the area – they will be in touch. Out.'

Goddard's expression became even more puzzled. He looked at the surrounding countryside, but that did not give him any clues.

Six miles away, 5,000 feet up was the AC-130 bringing Ash, Michell, Mrs Hapsburg and del Banco with their cargo.

'Spectre Five Zero from Redstone 1.' Xanthros gave the instructions himself, 'We have traffic at Bullinge for you.'

Captain John H Gold, the captain of the AC-130 replied,

'Roger that, we follow you.'

This told Xanthros that the aircrew knew what was going on, and have been following events.

Gold briefed Ollie the gunner,

'Free targets, fire at will.'

Ollie and his team prepared the 40 mm howitzer in the rear of the cargo compartment. He spoke to Mrs Hapsburg,

'This is why we couldn't take the truck on board, ma'am.'

The people on the ground by the now quiet Interstate did not know about the AC-130; it was too far away, they could not even hear it, given that it was flying on cruise throttle settings.

The 40 mm Howitzer in the back of the Hercules was gyroscopically steadied, and aimed with all the technical wizardry the modern armaments industry could muster, and it was firing downhill; the trajectory was almost flat.

Ollie moved things around until he saw a tank in his electronic sight. He looked quickly at Mrs Hapsburg,

'Not unlike a video game.' He indicated the TV monitor showing target information, 'I could almost pick a spot on the tank where I want the shell to land.'

He quickly returned to his duties,

'Target acquisition.'

Everyone in the aircraft heard the reply,

'Found.'

'Target resolution.'

'Good.'

'Ordinance.'

'DUAPS.'

'Load.'

The loader slammed a round in the breech,

'One in.' he stood back from the gun, looked purposefully around him before continuing, 'All clear.'

Ollie announced,

'Ready to shoot.'

He had spent some time on exchange with the British Royal Navy, and had picked up their habit of not saying the word 'fire' unless there was a conflagration threatening.

Captain Gold responded,

'Clear to fire 40 mil. Execute.'

Mrs Hapsburg expected the whole aircraft to shake – but the main recoil was absorbed by some very clever shock-absorbing technology. The noise was disturbing, but by now everyone's ears had become desensitised by the general noise inside the aircraft.

The main battle tank it was aimed at did not stand a chance. The Depleted Uranium Armour Piercing Sabot round landed just behind the turret; in the tank's most vulnerable spot. The resulting explosion blew the engine out and lifted the turret.

'Fox one tank. Target two.'

Del Banco quietly said,

'I think he said it is foxed.' He had forgotten that every word was transmitted throughout the aircraft.

Ollie continued,

'Target acquisition.'

'Found.'

'Target resolution.'

'Good.'

'Ordinance.'

'DUAPS.'

'Load.'

The same procedure – the same result.

This time the shell hit the side of the turret; probably the hardest part of the tank. It bounced off.

They say you don't hear the shell that hits you. The crew of this tank heard this one; a loud ping, followed by the sound of an incoming shell. This was because the shell is moving faster than sound, so it arrives first – followed by the sounds of it passing through the air. The crew did not hear the next one coming; 25 seconds later their last hit one home; straight through the top of the turret.

Ollie continued until all the tanks were smoking ruins.

Gold called up the convoy,

'Spectre to Task Force Two Five. Anything else we can do for you?'

Goddard and Murdoch looked around. There was movement around the tanks; every now and then they saw vehicles. Kayden took a pair of binoculars and began examining the bridge ahead of them.

Goddard called the Marines on the trailer roofs,

'Anyone up on top see any more threats?'

He didn't like being stationary, so began cautiously moving forward again as replies came in,

'One or two trucks over to starboard.'

'A collection of vehicles at 10 o'clock.'

'There is something happening on the bridge ahead.'

Goddard and Kayden both focussed their attentions to the bridge. There was certainly more action there. Kayden levelled her binoculars at the bridge, now just less than a mile ahead of them.

'Jesus!' she exclaimed, 'They got artillery.' She passed the binoculars to Goddard.

He didn't stop the vehicle; instead he let Kayden steer from her side as the convoy rolled slowly along.

Two of the pick-up trucks that were making their way towards the centre of the bridge were towing artillery pieces. He moved his gaze to the centre of the bridge. There what he saw made him jump. One of the pieces had already been set up.

Goddard grabbed at the mike as he dropped the binoculars,

'Task Force Two Five to Spectre, we have artillery on the second bridge,' he looked quickly through his rear view monitor, 'the first bridge we passed looks clear, but the guns up front look worrying.'

Captain Gold replied,

'Roger that, Two Five. We have him.'

Ollie, back on the 40 mm called,

'You want me to take him out, Skipper?'

'What are ammo you gonna use?'

'HE.'

This told the Captain that the gunner would use high explosive rounds.

'Roger that.'

Ollie went about his task,

'Target acquisition.'

'Found.'

'Target resolution.'

'Good.'

'Ordinance.'

'HE.'

'Load.'

The physical task of loading was automatic, but has to be initiated manually. This is done by Ollie as the last switch is thrown prior to firing.

'Shooting. Now.'

The AC-130s circuit lay some four miles from the bridge. The people on the bridge were not encased in metal like the tank men. They could hear what was going on around them. The sound of a 40 mm howitzer being fired four miles away was not particularly loud; not compared with the blast of a high explosive artillery shell on the gun right next to you.

The crew bringing the second gun on to the bridge had a better view of the events. Freddie stood by the front of the pick-up when the explosion tore into the first gun, scattering the people around it. His eardrums were nearly blown out – had he been able to hear, he would have heard the whistle of the incoming shell, but the low rumble of the shot being fired was so out of sequence no-one took any notice of it.

They certainly heard the AC-130 less than one minute later.

Goddard had stopped the convoy when the artillery piece had blown up.

He surveyed the situation through the binoculars,

'Hey, Spectre. That took care of the one that was ready to fire – but if you knock the bridge down we will never get out of here.' He tried to work out what the people on the bridge were doing, 'Looks like they are preparing rocket launchers now.'

Gold, in the AC-130 replied,

'Ok, on my way.'

He hauled the aircraft round to attack the bridge.

The people on the bridge were indeed assembling rocket launchers – Lawes anti-tank launchers as well as Rocket Propelled Grenades.

Now they saw a ghost-grey Hercules gunship almost standing on one wingtip as it made a run along the bridge.

In the front of the fuselage were two Gatling-type rotary machine guns firing 12,000 per minute between them – that equates to some 680 rounds in the 3.4 seconds it took Gold to fly along the bridge. There were 32 people on the bridge – an average of 21 bullets each.

The rear ramp was open. Ollie stood in the corner where the ramp met the side of the airframe. From here he aimed grenade explosives into the wrecks of the cars below, blowing them out of the way of the convoy.
Chapter Eleven

Vargas Returns

The Lincoln Continental had lost most of its shine. The pick-up trucks looked like they had always been rough – the people in them certainly did.

The weather out on the I-280 was dull and cloudy, the mood was not much better.

The man stood by the RV shouted,

'McKinley!' as he dragged the surprised driver from the vehicle, 'You bugged out on us ...'

McKinley was not as surprised as he would have his assailant believe; he placed one foot behind himself, then, without arching his back he lunged the top of his body towards the man who was dragging him, leading with his head. McKinley's forehead collided with the man's nose as intended.

Blood spurted out as if the man had a tomato in the middle of his face.

But it was not enough. Yes, the grip on McKinley's clothing was released; but by then the man had support. As tomato nose almost fell to one side he was replaced by two more men from the pick-ups.

McKinley stumbled to his feet after being forcibly removed from his RV by tomato nose, and then he was knocked to the ground by tomato nose's friends, who now jumped on him. Four boots laid into him as McKinley lay on the floor.

As he turned to Galina, Jake said,

'I don't think they like him...' but found that she was no longer by his side – she was racing towards the prone McKinley.

Upon arriving at the scene of the fight the Russian deep-sea diver simply dived into the melee.

At first it looked as if she was going to shoulder-charge the middle of the man's back – but the focus of the force of her charge was not her shoulder; it was the point of her elbow, which was aimed at the man's kidneys.

He went down without disturbing either the balance or momentum of Galina as she continued her charge towards the other man attacking McKinley.

She half turned in a spinning movement as she raised her left foot to waist height. The man was bending forwards to administer more punishment to McKinley as the foot caught him on the right temple.

He looked as if his head was about to come off – this was the result of him losing consciousness as the kick landed.

Galina now lost composure as she stumbled over McKinley. The momentum of her charge carried her towards the RV. She collided with the vehicle, and then dropped down to the ground alongside the vehicle.

Jake rushed to her side, glancing at the knocked-out men on the way. McKinley groaned as he regained his composure.

Xanthros was watching the events by the RV on a series of monitors. Since Semeramis had interfered with his communications earlier he had a radio set-up integrated into the Hilbert Transformation. This was like doing higher mathematic calculations, and then filtering it through an abacus. But it threw Semeramis off the track for long enough to allow Xanthros to re-group, and allowed him to communicate with his pilot again, who had been moved east to follow events.

'Vargas, there are a series of targets on the I-280 heading for Dover.'

'Roger that.' Vargas scanned the area around his A-10C before consulting his sat nav display. 'Do you want me to fly along the whole I-280?'

'That's a negative on that idea. I am sending co-ordinates to your sat-nav now. There is one target in particular you need to aim at; he is a man in a bright coloured shirt – he is your main target, but we don't know if he has shared the information with others, so you must annihilate them all to be sure.'

'Roger that, Chief.' Vargas looked down at his sat-nav display, 'co-ordinates received. On way to target. ETA seven minutes.'

This was about the time the vehicles stopped on the I-280. Then the scuffle began, this took everyone's attentions from the sky above them.

The cloud layer was down to 1,500 feet in most places. Vargas kept the A-10 just above the clouds until he was five miles from his target. Throttling right back, he began to descend through the cloud. Although blind at this point, he knew the ground height here to be less than 200 feet, so there should be plenty of room below the clouds.

He dropped out of the clouds at 1,400 feet above ground level, and three miles from his target. At this throttle setting the A-10 emits very little sound; just a faint whistle is discernable from ground level – but only once the aircraft has passed overhead because most of the sound footprint is laid out behind the aircraft.

The people on the I-280 were occupied by a fight breaking out close to an RV when the pale grey shape of an A-10 ground attack aircraft lined up on their position.

Vargas saw below him a scattering of vehicles. Less than half a mile away it was difficult to identify individuals – and they were coming up fast. He looked quickly at his speed – a little too fast at 345 mph; but now he had to depress the nose even further to bring the cannon to bear on his target. There was no time to aim now – he didn't even have time to work out what the vehicles were; dots one minute, small squares the next, then it was time to fire.

The 30 mm Gatling cannon sounded like a car without a silencer running at nearly 4,000 rpm as it fired into the collection of vehicles.

The dusty black Lincoln was first to cop it. The armour-piercing shells easily penetrated the cars bodywork. Once inside they exploded. That is four of the seven shells that hit the car exploded. The other Sabot rounds were designed purely to penetrate the armour of a main battle tank, and then thrash about inside – but with a thin-skinned vehicle like the Lincoln they simply passed right through.

A gaudy-coloured pick-up painted lime green with black tiger stripes was missed by a few scant feet.

Vargas moved his aim a little to the right to hit the RVs. The first one was almost cut in two as the rain of cannon shells tore through it, and across to the far side. He corrected back just in time to miss the next vehicle – the one that Jake, Galina, McKinley and the two assailants lay beside – but another pick-up got the full blast before the A-10 moved on.

Luckily there was no-one in any of the vehicles that were hit.

McKinley leapt in the pick-up that was almost alongside the Lincoln when it got hit. He was quick enough to pick up a Stinger anti-aircraft launcher. The weapon took a few seconds to boot up and acquire its target, and Vargas was almost a mile away, banked over to make another run, when the Stinger signalled that it was ready. McKinley fired. The missile shot out of the launch tube a split second later the main rocket engine fired up and accelerated it to two and a half times the speed of sound.

The jet engines on the A-10 are mounted on the top of the fuselage. As Vargas had banked hard over, the plan view was presented to McKinley. The hot jets were in full view. The missile laid a white trail behind it as it streaked unerringly towards the aircraft. The A-10 seemed to be moving too fast for the missile to catch from the given angle, but at the last second the Stinger turned almost 90 degrees as it drew close to the rear of the aircraft. It seemed to enter the right engine exhaust in its quest to find the hottest part, when it exploded. The annular charge destroyed both engines, and cut the rear of the aircraft off.

Jake and Galina looked at each other. After what seemed like long seconds Jake said one word,

'Xanthros.'

Galina nodded in agreement.

McKinley heard this; he had never heard the name before,

'What you talking about, boy?'

Jake just said,

'You wouldn't understand.'

His cell-phone rang.

Semeramis was apologetic,

'I'm very sorry; Xanthros has found ways of communicating with single people without me knowing about it. I have just heard about his latest scheme to use the A-10. Is it dealt with?'

Jake looked at the white streak left by the missile, now beginning to disperse, with a big black cloud at the end of it,

'Oh, yes; it has been dealt with.'

'Good. But I'm afraid I have bad news about Tom Collins. He suffered too much punishment just before you got back from Mars – and then was not able to get medical help in time. Xanthros's men turned up just after Tom passed away, they took Masuto away for questioning, but she didn't know anything, so they let her go.'

Jake was shaken by this news,

'Does Ash know this?'

'He will, because he is with two of our most trusted family members.'

Jake passed the information on to Galina,

'Tom's dead.'

She expressed surprise,

'How? When?'

Jake was now trying to have two conversations at the same time. Into the phone he said,

'Hold on a moment, Sem.' He then turned to Galina, 'It must have been soon after he got to hospital. Tell you more later.' Back into the phone, 'Ok, Sem. What happens now? Where is Ash?'

Semeramis continued,

'Ash is at Huntsville with Michelle and some of our family members.'

Jake looked around at the destroyed vehicles, and the not-too friendly people,

'Well, I hope he is doing better than we are here.'

Just then an angry man broke into the conversation. He had heard McKinley's comment when he -heard the name Xanthros,

'Hey, what you doin'? Did you bring down that hit on us?'

Jake reacted without moving the phone from his ear,

'No, stupid. Can't you see that we are here in harm's way? The chances are he was aiming at us.'

'You mean it is your fault anyways? What are you doin' now, calling in more of the same?' He waved his arm towards the smoking vehicles, 'I could kill you, and that would solve all our problems.' He drew a large knife.

Semeramis could hear all this, she said to Jake,

'Let me speak to this man.'

Jake was puzzled by this, so much so that he just found himself passing the cell phone to the man, saying,

'She wants to speak to you.'

The man was dumbfounded; he had a knife in his right hand, he took the phone in his left hand, and put it to his ear.

Semeramis spoke quietly to the man – but it was not what she said that had an effect on him; because he was holding the phone next to his skull she was able to use the Hilbert transformation to imprint her message directly on his brain.

He handed the phone back to Jake, put his knife away, then turned and walked away without saying a word.

Jake said to Semeramis,

'Jesus, Sem, what did you say to him?'

'That doesn't matter right now; you need to get to Harrisburg.'

'Why, what's there?'

'Totem.'

'Who?' Jake was perplexed.

'Never mind that now, we will send an aircraft to Newark International to pick you up.'

'Newark!' Jake was surprised by this, 'Is that even open?'

''Yes; well, more abandoned than open. We can put a military transport in there for you the day after tomorrow. Can you get there for then?'

Jake looked around. McKinley was being taken away by his erstwhile 'friends'. Randal was checking his RV for damage, then Jake remembered that they were originally aiming at Dutchess County Airport. He said to Semeramis,

'Could you make that Dutchess County Airport? I think it would be too dangerous to go back to New York.'

'Ok. Dutchess County Airport it is.'
Chapter Twelve

Steve Luke

The man facing Styx resembled a Micheal Fassbender lookalike with red hair.

Steve Luke originally hailed from Glasgow; his Scottish accent came through as he said,

'My men have been looking over your little truck.'

The accent threw Styx at first; he had to ask for a repeat,

'Whaaa?'

'Your truck. My men have been examining it very closely.' He moved closer to Styx, 'Some seem to think it may be a Pinkerton.'

'Whaa you talking about?'

Luke's hand swept the air with an open gesture,

'If the government wished to build a vehicle that would make us think you were one of us, that is exactly how they would do it.'

Styx raised one eyebrow as he replied,

'Well, in a way they did. But they just didn't know about it.'

The big Glaswegian laughed as he moved back behind his desk,

'We have here some people who can find out if you are telling the truth.'

With that two burly backwoodsmen moved behind Styx.

They took him by the arms, and forced him to sit in a chair. They taped his arms down. One of them then moved in front of Styx. As he was expecting the man to hit him the man behind landed him a savage blow on his shoulder with a stout stick. The force of this nearly knocked Styx off the chair.

Only a swift kick on his other shoulder from the other man in front prevented him from taking the chair to the ground.

Then the man in front landed him a severe punch to the middle of his chest. The man behind then stopped Styx from falling back. As he was pushed forwards again the man in front landed a blow between Styx's eyes. This brought on a nose bleed. As the blood flowed down his face, and then on to his shirt another blow from behind hit the right shoulder again.

Styx thought his arm may have been broken, the pain was so intense.

Then another kick from the front on the other side.

As Styx's head lolled forwards his eyes closed.

The man behind then took hold of his hair, and pulled his head back. Styx opened his eyes in time to see another punch land on his stomach.

He heard himself retch as this landed.

Luke interrupted the proceedings,

'Now then – who sent you?'

Styx spat blood out to enable him to speak,

'No-one sent me. I was running with a crew out of Maddison County.'

'Then why are you not with them any more?'

A 'gentle' tapping on the wounded shoulder from behind was enough to warn Styx of what was likely to come next.

'He winced as he replied,

'There was a fight; I think they were jealous of my tan.'

Styx referred to likely tensions caused by racial intolerance.

'Who else was in that crew?'

Styx gambled that Luke didn't know them personally as he replied,

'McKinley, Mercer, Pratt, Harrison.'

Luke looked at the man behind Styx. Styx could not see, but the man was nodding as he said,

'I've heard of McKinley – a bit of a twat from what I hear.'

Luke sat back in his chair; he seemed to be contemplating his position when someone came into the room. From where he was sitting Styx couldn't see them.'

'There's been a development, Boss.' Jed, one of the men said.

More footsteps were heard coming into the room; some of them seemed to be someone shuffling.

'These two were picked up; these two were found touring around in a Winebago. This one is a bloody android.'

Luke turned his attention back to Styx,

'Friends of yours?' He nodded to the incomers. Two men were pushed in front of Styx. The taller one had a pitch-form prodding him in the back. He also wore a blindfold.

Styx looked at Rockefeller and Gerald through blood-shot eyes,

'Never seen them before.' He avoided shaking his head because of the dripping, running blood.

Luke asked all three,

'Have you been working on Totem?'

Rockefeller was first to reply.

'What's Totem to you?'

'I will ask the questions.' Luke concentrated on Rockefeller, 'So you know what it is, then?'

Rockefeller shook his head,

'No, I don't know what it is. If you could elaborate a little...?'

This line of questioning was brought to an abrupt ending by a sharp whack in the back from one of the men who brought them into the room.

Luke repeated the question,

'Just answer the question. Have you been working on Totem?'

Rockefeller straightened up as he said,

'No. We're touring from New York.'

'And where were you going?'

Rockefeller didn't think before replying. He looked at the man with a stout stick about to hit him again,

'Harrisburg.'

Jed stood by Luke. He asked,

'And just why were you going to Harrisburg? We have had a good look at your transport; it is not your standard mobile home.'

Luke glanced at the man before turning back to Rockefeller,

'Answer the question – who are you working for?'

Gerald signalled to Rockefeller to let him answer,

'There is a split from the Republican party originally made up of scientists unhappy with the way several governments have been treating the sciences in this country. Now, with the effects of the Tsunami, things have got much worse. So much so that they have joined forces with other dissenters with an aim of running the country taking advantage of science rather than looking at science as something they can save money by cutting it back.'

Luke pondered this for a moment, then said,

'And just who are these other dissenters?'

'There are always dissatisfied politicians, but now there are elements of the military who's budgets have been cut and cancelled who have joined us.'

'What about Totem? Has that been cut?'

Gerald looked almost apologetic,

'I'm sorry, sir, we have no-one who has mentioned Totem; so I presume, whatever it is, has not been cut.'

Rockefeller was surprised by all of this, but did not show it as he said,

'Androids are programmed to never lie. What can I say?'

Luke waved his hand,

'Take them away, lock em up together.'

The two men who had been beating up Styx simply picked up the chair with Styx still taped to the armrests, and followed the others out of the room.

The chair in which Styx was fastened hit the ground hard, causing him to fall to the floor. By now he was beginning to recover from his beating, but his arms were still tied down. He looked to his left, into the room, and saw the other two prisoners against the far wall.

As they left the room Gerald decided to tip Styx up. As he hit his head on the floor the men left the room, securely locking it on the way out.

Rockefeller and Gerald picked the chair and the hapless Styx up, and began undoing the tapes which held Styx to the chair. As they did this Gerald's head was close to Styx's ear. At this close range Gerald said in the quietest whisper,

'Audio surveillance devices detected.'

He had already notified Rockefeller; this meant that there were listening devices in the room.

Eventually Styx said,

'Who the fuck are you, and why have I been put in here with you?'

Rockefeller gave the reply,

'We could ask the very same question of you. What are you? Some kind of pirate? Drug runner, general outlaw?'

'None of the above. Just an ex-marine trying to survive.'

'It looks like you are not doing a very good job of it.'

Inscrutable as ever, Styx let this go.

Gerald and Rockefeller undid the tapes binding Styx to the chair.

He stood up and shook himself. With liberal amounts of blood on his face and down his shirt he did not look too fit.

Rockefeller commented,

'Are you ok?

'Takes more than a few knocks to take me out. Speaking of which – how are we to get out of here?'

In another room Luke and his cohorts gathered to listen to what was being said.

Luke was first to speak,

'They don't seem to know him.'

'I still think he's a Pinkerton.' Jed added.

'We must proceed with caution.' Someone else said.

Luke pointed out,

'We ain't no prison facility – we can't have passengers'

Jed commented,

'Let 'em run, then follow them,'

Luke thought for a moment,

'Make it look good.'

Jed nodded,

'I'll put them Roach brothers on it; they ain't much good at anything, anyhow.'

The Roach brothers were three hillbilly types with no education, nor the capacity to absorb one if they could have gotten one.

Earl Roach was the eldest, some 34 years by estimation; no calendars in the backwoods. You could see that he was long in the tooth because he had lost most of them. Some due to decay and bad hygiene, but most through fighting.

Jeremiah was a little younger, he had only lost his back teeth, and James was the baby of the bunch, being in his mid twenties, and in possession of a full set of gnashers.

These three were sent to move the prisoners to the shack in the cherry orchard. The Roach brothers did not question how they were supposed to do this; Earl had an old 7 mm hand gun that would jam after every round. This was not only due to its age, but also the fact that Earl never cleaned it. Jeremiah had had his gun confiscated because he was a greater danger to his side than he was to any enemy. James was just judged to be too young to handle a firearm.

This motley group entered the room containing an ex-marine, a highly developed android, and a member of the Illuminate.

Earl waved his handgun about, shouting orders,

'Head em up, move 'em out. You're all a-goin' a-cherry pickn, boy.'

Jeremiah moved around the room to the rear of Gerald, whereupon Jeremiah attempted to kick him from behind. This did not work out too well; Gerald simply took hold of Jeremiah's trouser leg before it got to him without even looking. He then hoisted the hapless brother by his ankle; thereby upending him.

Just then James entered the room as Earl pointed his gun at Gerald. This put him some ninety degrees to Styx, who charged at Earl's gun arm. The gun went off in the direction of his youngest brother, who promptly turned and ran back out of the door he had just come through.

He was quickly followed by Rockefeller, who made sure that the way was clear for the rest of his group.

Styx stuck an elbow into Earl's stomach. The gun went flying, Earl bent double as Styx landed a crushing blow to his exposed jaw. The elder Roach brother fell like a felled tree.

Jeremiah was in a similar predicament, being dumped on the ground by Gerald, who then spun around to stick the boot in to the hapless Jeremiah.

Styx and Gerald quickly followed Rockefeller out of the door.

They were pleased to find their truck parked nearby.

Styx immediately looked in the normal place to find the keys - on top of the drivers visor.

He was not surprised when they fell into his open hand.

There was no drama as Styx fired up the engine. He made an orderly exit from the camp as if there was nothing wrong. As soon as he hit the main highway he opened the throttle to the max.

At about the same time Steve Luke and Jed took to the road. Like Styx they too seemed to have no hurry about leaving.
Chapter Thirteen

Redstone Arsenal

Del Banco knew what was in the containers and trailers in the convoy.

As he stood with Ash they watched as the large vehicles rolled into the safety of the compound known as Redstone Arsenal. A pale grey container passed them streaming a green liquid.

Ash said,

'Just what the Sweet Jesus have you got in these things?'

Del Banco turned to Ash with a quizzical look on his face,

'You mean you don't really know?'

'I wouldn't ask otherwise.'

Del Banco raised one eyebrow, and cocked his head a little, but did not reply.

Pink dust began to be raised from the road. Combined with the exhaust fumes, this encouraged the observers to move away from the arriving vehicles.

Ash followed del Banco into a warehouse-type building, past immense crates. He noticed on the opposite side of the central roadway, other people walking the same way. He did not recognise them; he noticed that del Banco joined them. In front was the Marquis of Libeaux, Sem and Romanov had made it down from Canada, Mrs Hapsburg was the last in line, the first one Ash recognised. He moved across to greet her when Sem spoke to Michelle, who immediately recognised the voice,

'Hi, so sorry about Tom, but there was very little we could do.'

'I know you did all you could.'

Ash asked Sem,

'Have you any news about Jake and Galina?'

'Yes, they are on their way in.'

'And Hoshi?'

'She is waiting for us.'

They continued to the far side of the warehouse, and through a double door, then into an area that Ash thought looked familiar, he spoke quietly to Michelle,

'This looks like it was straight out of Houston.'

'It is certainly space orientated.' She agreed.

'We are nearly all here' said del Banco, 'When Romanov joins us we shall be complete.'

Michelle then asked,

'What about Xanthros?'

This was really a stab in the dark, she didn't know if Xanthros was involved, but the whole affair had the feeling of his work.

Semeramis replied,

'He is awaiting us in the control room.'

'Control room!' thought Ash, 'What kind of operation is this? I wish Jake were here.'

Jake and Galina were travelling with Randal in his RV; approaching Dutchess County Airport from the west.

Randall was driving as they skirted south of Pleasant Valley. He was plodding along at a steady 60 mph to conserve fuel when he glanced in his mirror. What he saw made him place his foot straight to the floor.

As the vehicle accelerated Jake and Galina were rudely awoken from their reverie. Galina was sat in the middle; between the two men,

'What's the matter?' she asked for both of them.

Randall answered calmly,

'Three vehicles behind us.'

Jake looked through the mirror as best he could; it being adjusted for the driver,

'So?'

'One of them is a lime green pick-up with black tiger stripes.'

Jake tried to see through the mirror, but couldn't make out the following vehicles,

'You reckon it could be Helix?'

'How many pick-ups have you seen with that kind of colour scheme?'

'Not many.' Came the reply.

'I rest my case your honour.'

The Ford pick-ups had a better turn of speed than the RV, but they still had a hard time catching it.

Randal tried every trick he could to shake off the pursuers, but still they kept gaining.

Then a rocket-propelled grenade exploded way off to the right, and some way behind the RV. So they were still out of effective range. They did not know it, but there were also high-powered rifles firing at them; but with the movement of the launch vehicle, and the swerving the RV did, the aims were well off – but within range.

Jake knew the answer, but asked the question just the same,

'Are there any weapons on board?'

Randall shook his head,

'No.'

Galina took out her cell phone, and dialled 911.

When she got a reply she pressed 5.

Semeramis came straight on the line,

'Hello, Galina. Can I be of some help to you?'

'Yes, I hope so. We are on the I52 just south of Pleasant Valley being chased by a bunch of nasty individuals in pick-up trucks. Is there anything you can do for us?'

Semeramis seemed to think for a second or two before replying,

'Yes. I think I can help you. There is a Spectre gunship 125 miles from you. Can you hold these people off until he gets there?'

'How long?'

'Twenty-five minutes.'

Galina turned to Randal,

'Can you hold them off for twenty-five minutes?'

He looked across Jake to Galina with a puzzled look on his face. He saw the phone in her hand, and then replied,

'I don't see how, but I'll give it a damned good try.'

He turned back to the road ahead, dropped down a gear, the engine screamed; the RV gained a little speed.

Galina passed this information to Semeramis, who replied,

'OK, I have your location from your cell, Good luck.'

They mounted the crest of a hill. Randal hit top gear as they crested the top, and began their run downhill. He knew that the pick-ups would not be able to see him for a few seconds as they climbed the hill. He planned to use this time to throw them off the scent.

The opening for the drive of a house came into view.

Randal slammed on the brakes, only just losing enough speed to make the turn. He knew he would be leaving tire marks on the road, but there was no choice. The RV nearly capsized as it shot around the bend onto the avenue. The driveway was just long enough for him to lose enough speed to avoid crashing into the house. He wrenched the wheel round to take the vehicle round to the back of the property. It was then that three speeding pick-ups shot past the house.

Randal had his window open. As the RV stopped he heard the enemy vehicles roar downhill past the house. Randal did not waste any time – he slammed the gear lever into drive, and stood on the gas pedal.

As they exited the driveway, they turned away from the direction in which they wanted to go, and began moving away from the pick-ups.

In the lime green and black pick-up Helix could see along the road for about half a mile in front, and he knew the RV should be visible. He realised he had been tricked. McKinley was driving. Helix shouted to him,

'Shit!! They must have pulled some stunt.'

Then he remembered seeing black tire marks near a house.

'They must have gone into that drive back there. Turn this rig around – now!'

McKinley hit the brakes. They were travelling quite fast downhill; and the two vehicles behind almost ran into the back of him as they all tried to lose speed before beginning their three or five or seven point turns to turn around.

By which time Randal had put about a mile and a half between them and their pursuers.

Twenty minutes later the pick-ups had gained on the rear of the RV. RPGs exploded around the vehicle again and high velocity rounds were being fired at it.

One round smashed the back window and lodged in the furnishings. Another grazed a side window and took it out.

In the back of the AC-130 Ollie loaded his gun.

Captain Gold used the data given to him by Semeramis to identify the vehicles below. There were four vehicles in line. He called to Ollie,

Four vehicles. The lead vehicle is blue. Do not risk damage to the lead vehicle.'

'Roger that. I can't hit the second vehicle without risking damaging the lead.'

'Then hit the third vehicle. Fire when ready.'

'Roger that.' A slight pause, then, 'Shooting now.'

At three and a half miles range the 40mm howitzer belched smoke as it fired one round. 17 seconds later the second pick-up truck exploded. The third pick-up ran into the explosion. The lime green truck continued after the RV.

Helix knew that the RPGs and snipers were in the second truck; that was why exploded like it did – he put it down to mishandling RPGs.

Galina looked around the inside of the RV, and worried about the broken windows,

'What about the animals?' she addressed the question to Randal; he was primarily responsible for the animals that could pose a threat to people at the zoo, and were difficult to contain. Most of the hard to contain animals were harmless; Lizards, Chimps, Frogs and Spiders. But some were dangerous and difficult to keep away from people – snakes. To this end they had taken the four most venomous snakes, a Black Mamba, Two Vipers and a Cobra. It was these that Galina referred to, and worried about.

It is not known whether she worried for the welfare of the snakes or the danger they would no doubt pose if one were loose within the vehicle.

She climbed into the rear of the RV, and checked the boxes that contained the snakes.

'Ok back here.'

Jake had an idea; he turned to Randal and said,

'Can you get him to pass us on this side?'

Randal was perplexed,

'Well, yes. But I don't see – he will simply run us off the road.'

'Not if I have anything to do with it' Jake then turned to Galina, 'Pass me the box with the Vipers in it.'

She did this.

'Thanks. Now stand by with the Black Mamba.'

The weather was warm. And it had been a hot chase; Jake was hoping that Helix was feeling the heat.

Randal backed off the gas.

Jake said to him,

'Brake gently at first, then jam 'em on when I shout.'

The RV swerved to prevent Helix from passing on the drivers' side. McKinley thought he had them by passing on what was the nearside.

Randal began braking. The men in the back of the pick-up readied their guns.

The two vehicles drew level with each other.

As McKinley prepared to ram the RV, Jake threw the open box containing the Vipers through the window of the truck.

He called to Galina,

'The Black Mamba.'

She passed another box to him, this he threw into the rear of the pick-up.

'Brake.' He cried.

Randal stamped on the brakes. Galina shot forwards.

The pick-up didn't slow at first; McKinley was too busy trying to keep his feet off the ground where there were two Vipers writhing around. Helix made a grab for the wheel only to find that one of the snakes was hanging on to the dashboard in front of him. He looked straight at the forked tongue as it retracted into the snake's mouth. Fangs flashed as his arm exploded in agony. The other Viper seemed to jump up at McKinley, biting him on the leg.

The men in the back tried shooting at the Black Mamba, to no avail. They soon realised that their best chance of survival was to jump over the side.

Randal and Jake watched as the RV slowed.

They saw the pick-up truck swerve wildly from side to side, and then collide with a tree off the side of the road.

As Galina picked herself up from the floor of the RV her cell phone rang.

It was Semeramis,

'Hi, did everything turn out ok?'

'Yes, thank you. We had a little trouble with one truck, but he will not be bothering us again.'

'Good. I see you are not far from Dutchess County Airport. The C-130 is about to land there to transport you to Redstone Arsenal.'

Ten minutes later the ghost grey Hercules lined up on the main runway at Duchess County Airport.

The RV entered the airport five minutes later.

Galina said to Randal,

'Are you coming with us?'

'Can't, I'm afraid. I have to see to the Cobra in back here.'

He indicated the dark green box holding the snake.

Jake interjected with a smile,

'You could always leave it here – anyone finding it would be in for a surprise.'
Chapter Fourteen

The Clan Almost Complete

The room Ash found himself in had plastic sheeting across one side - he couldn't even make out if there was a wall behind it or not. The front wall he could not fail to identify; it was covered in screens showing maps, plans and schematics. The main part of the hall was filled with what looked like computer screens and desks that were obviously built for the purpose – this was a control centre.

Hoshi had joined he and Michelle just before they had been shown into this room inside Redstone Arsenal.

Slowly they walked along what might well have been some sort of observation gallery. As they gazed in wonderment at the equipment and displays Michelle noticed a very bright colour in the far corner. It was a Hawaiian shirt. The man wearing it could only be seen from the waist upwards, and then she saw he was not alone.

Before she could stop herself she heard her voice emitting from within,

'Galina! Jake!'

This followed by waving reminiscent of the waving on the dockside so long ago.

So at last the four astronauts who had walked on Mars were now reunited.

The controlling elements however were not. The Marquis of Libeaux, Mrs Hapsburg, del Banco, Romanov, Xanthros and Semeramis were all in the Redstone Arsenal, but they were still missing one of their number – Rockefeller was still being pursued by Steve Luke.

Semeramis knew what was going on. She called Rockefeller,

'You have an interested party following you at one mile distance.'

'How?'

'There is a tracking device on your vehicle. What are your intentions?'

'What options do I have?' Rockefeller knew that Semeramis would be on top of the communications.

'There have been no communications from the pursuing vehicle. I would expect a lot of whooping and hollering if they were a convoy of hillbillies.'

'That's reassuring. Is there any chance of us finding the tracker, and dumping it?'

'Not really; they are only half a mile behind you, they would be on you within a minute. Could you change vehicles?'

'In less than one minute? Unlikely; anyhow, Hertz have no branches near here.'

Gerald said,

'I have detected roughly where the device is. It is underneath the vehicle approximately here.' He indicated an area on the floor, 'I could slide under and remove it in about eight seconds.'

Styx hit the accelerator,

'Let's see if we can buy a little more time.'

Steve Luke was driving the car; Jed was monitoring the tracking device.

A steady 60 mph was being held as they toured along. Suddenly Jed said,

'Hello, he's speeded up.'

Luke put gentle pressure on the gas pedal.

Jed stared at the display,

'Jeez, I mean he really hit the gas. Estimated speed – 85, 90, 95, 100, 110,' his eyes began to widen as the display continued to rise, '120, 125, 130.' He looked directly at Steve Luke. Luke glanced back and gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, at the same time putting his foot flat to the floor.

At 90 mph the car had reached its top speed; Rockefeller and company were opening out a respectable gap.

Semeramis was monitoring the situation, using superior technology,

'You are now almost one mile ahead. The problem is, because they are now travelling much faster than they were before it will not take them as long to catch up – I estimate if you come to a complete stop from 130 mph, and they maintain 90, they will reach you in less than 40 seconds.'

Gerald said to Styx,

'That's more than enough.'

Styx slammed on the brakes.

Jed picked up the change in speed,

'Shit. He's slowing right down. A stop. A complete stop.'

Luke began braking, gently at first,

'This could be a trap.'

Jed agreed,

'Looks suspicious.'

As the truck came to an abrupt stop Gerald leapt out before the wheels had stopped juddering, trying to grip. In a cloud of dust he grabbed hold of the underside with one hand, and then used infra-red vision to see through the dust as the wheels stopped. He grabbed the offending device, and exited the underside of the vehicle less than one second after the wheels had stopped,

'Go, Go.' He shouted as he dived back into the vehicle.

Styx slammed into second gear, and hit the gas. He turned to Gerald,

'Did you get it?'

'Certainly did.' Gerald said, holding a small electronic device aloft.'

Rockefeller asked,

'Can anyone see what is wrong here?'

Styx moved up the gears steadily as they approached 70 mph.

Gerald looked at Styx, they both shook their heads.

Rockefeller put them out of their misery by announcing loudly,

'It is still here!'

Gerald gave a look of mock impatience – the kind of look you give a child who says something to test your patience,

'I wasn't keeping it as a souvenir.' He reached into the back of the truck, and came up with a small drone, no bigger than a sparrow, 'This little chap will pretend to be us.'

With that he attached the tracking device on to the drone,

'I believe we can make him believe that we have gone off road.'

He released the drone, which he controlled, slowing as it followed them for a short distance, Gerald said,

'I don't think they would believe that we went off road at 90 degrees whilst travelling at 70 miles per hour.'

He kept the drone at two feet above the ground as it moved over the rough terrain. The little rotors kicked up a little sand as Gerald allowed it to drop even lower, then more as it turned over the dusty ground.

Jed was not slow in picking this up,

'They've gone off-road.' He told Luke.

'Have they?' Luke replied. 'I don't think so.'

'Whaa?' Jed pointed at his instrument, 'It says here that they slowed, and then turned right off the road. We should see their dust any moment now.'

Luke tapped his temple as he said,

'It says up here that they didn't leave the road.'

Jed looked incredulously at Luke. He strained to look for a tell-tale cloud of dust. Eventually he saw one,

'There. There's dust bein' raised over there.'

Luke glanced across to Jed. He turned his attention back to the tarmac road in front of them. Then he jerked the wheel over to the right. The car left the road, and began running on the dirt on the side of the road. After a few seconds Luke pulled the vehicle back onto the tarmac, he turned to Jed,

'See how much dust we kicked up back there? Does it look anything like the cloud you saw?'

'Well, no. But the tracker says they are over in that direction.'

'And I say they are still on this here road.'

Jed was beginning to be exasperated by Luke,

'Oh, yeah – and just what makes you think they are on this road?'

'Easy; I know where they are going, and if they are taking some kind of detour we will get there before them – that sure would surprise 'em.'

Jed was still not convinced. He studied his tracking monitor as he said,

'How?'

'That's easy; they stopped momentarily. That would be enough time to rip the tracker off. After that the information from the tracker became suspect.'

'Ok, but how do you know where they are heading? Was it somethin' they said?'

'No, Jed. What were we asking them about?'

'Totem.'

'And where is Totem?'

'We don't know.'

'We didn't know. We do now – or I do.'

Jed looked again at Luke,

'How?'

Luke began to explain,

'You know how we accused them of being Pinkertons?'

'Yeah.'

'There are more than one kind of Pinkerton. You can only think of Government agents, but I'm another kind of Pinkerton – I don't work for the Government, I work for a University as a private enterprise. We, that is, the university, have picked up some strange anomalies over the last years. For instance – you got your cell phone on you?'

Jed touched his pocket,

'Yeah.'

'Then I would advise you to take it out of your pocket, and remove the battery – simply switching it off will not do any more.'

Jed took the battery out of his phone.

Semeramis contacted Gerald,

'We've lost them. But I am sure that they did not fall for your trick with the drone.'

Gerald replied without speaking,

'Then they are still following us?'

'Yes, but I'm pretty sure that they are doing it blindly.'

'In that case I am going to try something.'

'What do you have in mind?'

'Let's take a look at who we have here. They have an advantage; they know who we are.'

'And exactly how do you intend to do that?'

'Easy; we shall stop and hide. There is no traffic hereabouts. We simply wait for them to pass us.'

'Then what?'

'I don't know.'

Styx was surprised when Gerald suggested hiding; he looked at Rockefeller and said,

'What do you think?'

Rockefeller thought for a moment,

'It could prove interesting.'

Styx was quick to reply,

'It could prove dangerous.'

'I think we should do it.'

Styx shrugged,

'Ok.'

He saw a large bush – indeed a baby tree with branches close to the ground.

Styx came off the road a long way back from the bush to avoid leaving tell-tale tracks.

They sat in complete concealment, and waited for their pursuers.

Steve Luke shot past the bush at a reasonable speed, but the hidden people had plenty of time to see who was in the car.

Styx was first to speak,

'That was certainly two men from the compound.' He slipped the car into drive, and took his time pulling out on to the road, 'Now what?'

Rockefeller said,

'Just follow for now.'

Gerald asked,

'What if they are armed?'

Styx threw a couple of switches, looked at some small read-outs on the dash, then said,

'So are we; the 50 cals are still fully loaded.'

They gained on Luke's car quite quickly.

At half a mile they saw it pick up a little speed – they had been spotted.

Styx matched the other car's speed with ease.

Then the lead car began to slow.

Closing from a quarter mile Styx began to feel nervous; If a rocket propelled grenade is fired now they would be exposed to a fragmentation explosion.

He gunned the engine, accelerated quickly as the car reached a bend in the road. As it took the bend, Styx opened up with the forward firing 50 cal heavy machine guns.

The fall of shot was to one side of the fleeing car – but Styx was right behind them when they exited the bend.

Luke knew that they were in real danger, but if the people in the truck behind wanted to kill them they could easily have done so.

Luke pulled the car to a stop.

Styx got out of the truck, at the same time he signalled Rockefeller to slide across to the drivers' position. He quickly showed him how to fire the 50 cals, and then called across to Gerald,

'Keep out of the line of fire. If these guys are armed we will have to use the trucks' guns.'

As the four people drew closer to each other Steve Luke was first to speak,

'I need to speak to the man still in the truck.'

Styx approached close to Luke and Jed.

He scrutinized the men; they did not look armed and dangerous.

Gerald said,

What business do you have with him that we cannot deal with?'

'I am not armed, I mean you no harm; I have something to say that all three of you need to hear.'

Styx looked at Gerald,

'Should we bring him out?'

'The threat seems to have diminished somewhat.'

Styx turned back to wave at Rockefeller, indicating that he should join them.

As he joined them Luke nodded recognition to Rockefeller, he said,

'I think I know who you are now; or rather, what you are.'

Rockefeller said,

'Then you have me at a disadvantage.'

'I am working for a University. They found some anomalies in space related activities after the tsunami. They stood out then because everything else had been shut down. We couldn't fit all the pieces together at first; but when you were let run from the compound I could clearly see that you were heading for Redstone.'

Jed looked surprised,

'I Sure as hell didn't sign up for none of this shit.'

Luke tossed him the keys to the car,

'Well, you can take the car and go your own way.' Turning back to Rockefeller and his group he said, 'Looks like I'll be needing a lift.'

Rockefeller responded,

'You can tell us all about your university on the way.'
Chapter Fifteen

The Alamo

Some weeks earlier.

Professor Bobby Anstey III stood in his office in the Science Department of Whitney University.

He was keeping his temper under control as he stroked his bald pate. Then he shook his head as he faced Steve Luke,

'What the blue blazes have you been doing, Luke?'

'I have been watching and studying launches over the last few months, and there are some anomalies that I think should be looked into here.' He placed the papers and his tablet computer on the desk. 'Quite a few of these launches are far more energetic than needed; here, this one from Andhara Pradesh, India. Scheduled to go round the moon twice, and then return. This it did; but was nine hours late returning to Earth. And the payload, as described in the manifest, does not look true, for a rocket of this size.'

Bobby looked through the papers before replying,

'Are these in date order, or size, or what?'

'Date order, sir. You will notice that the date of the Tsunami made no difference; the anomalies just kept on coming, even though virtually all the other launches were stopped.'

Bobby picked up one of the papers and gave it some scrutiny,

'On first glance, this one seems ok. Launched from Amur Oblast. Payload figures, intentions, given quite clearly. What's wrong here?'

Luke turned his head to better read the chart,

'Yes, but if you then analyse the flight pattern, and even just look at the rocket itself, you find a very different game being played here.' His stubby finger stabbed on the sheet, 'This rocket was about half as big as you would expect for the mission stated; and it certainly did not follow the declared flight plan – for instance the energy emitted during launch was far more than anticipated.'

'Who the ...' Bobby though for a moment, turned a few sheets over, and then looked at Luke, 'You had better look into this; I want more information.'

... ... ... ... ... ...

Rockefeller directed Styx which way to go when they reached Redstone Arsenal.

He then led Luke into the 'Mission Control' room where Ash and company now found themselves.

Luke was shown in through double doors. He found when he entered that he was at the back of the room, with desks and monitoring stations steeped down to the front, and gigantic screens covering the wall facing him.

The wall to his left was obscured by large plastic sheets, as if building work was still being completed.

As Rockefeller closed the door behind him Luke saw five figures below his level, almost by the front row of monitoring stations. They began moving towards the plastic sheeting when he suddenly recognised four of them – they were the people who had walked on the surface of Mars.

'Hey!' was all Luke could muster.

The five turned to see Luke. They stopped while he made his way down to them. When he got down to them he began shaking hands,

'Colonel Ashton, Colonel Jensen, Professor Masuto, Doctor Danilenko.'

When he came to Michelle he hesitated. She saved him the embarrassment,

'Hi, I'm Michelle Romero from NASA.'

'It is a great honour and a privilege to meet you all here.' Luke looked around, 'Where is here? And what have you guys got here?'

Jake Jensen said,

\--'Great. We already know who we are, who are you?'

'Steve Luke from Whitney Uni.'

Ash waved his arm in an arc as he remarked,

'This is not ours. We are as mystified as you.'

Galina moved towards the plastic curtain,

'Let's see what is behind here.'

As she reached out to touch the curtain a voice from the back of the room stopped them,

'I wouldn't do that if I were you.' Gerald 57/29K called, 'Those were put there to protect everything here from dust and dirt; that includes you.'

Ash and Jake spun round at the sound of this familiar voice.

Hoshi said,

'I thought we'd seen the last of him.'

The astronauts were a little concerned, to say the least.

Jake was first to speak,

'Shit, that bastard tried to kill us all.'

Ash took Jake's arm by the elbow, as if to restrain him,

'Hold on a moment here – something's not quite right.'

He looked across the room at the Gerald,

'You must be joking. The Gerald we knew was ripped apart on the surface of Mars, and then blown up in a spaceship, before being sent to the sun. There is no way this is the same chap.'

'That is quite correct Colonel Ashton. I am only one of a breed of androids.'

Another voice came from the back of the room,

'Whereas I, on the other hand, am unique.' Mike Xanthros emerged as he said this, 'but these are not.'

As he spoke every door into the room was opened, and two or three Geralds appeared at each one.

Xanthros continued as he began moving down the room towards the astronauts,

'You damaged and destroyed a lot of expensive equipment as you left Mars.

The Geralds also began moving towards Ash and his colleagues in a menacing manner.

Xanthros had not seen Michelle behind Ash. She was somewhat in awe of her erstwhile boss, so she was keeping out of his line of sight. The rest of her group were fixated on the palpable threat moving towards them.

Michelle saw movement in the plastic sheeting behind them.

Hoshi turned to see Michelle watching the curtain, then turned back to watch the approaching men in suits.

Styx held out an arm to stop Jake from moving forwards. The ex-marine said,

'Hold it; they are after you, not me. I'll take care of this.'

He withdrew two Uzzi machine pistols from his volumous coat pockets.

Without hesitation he let fly at the heads of the nearest Geralds.

In less than one second these heads each received fifty rounds – they ceased to exist. The cadaver below also ceased to function.

Steve Luke was stood by Michelle and Masuto, he stepped forwards as if to protect them,

He called across to Styx,

'Here.'

Styx understood at once, and tossed one of the machine pistols across to Luke.

A second line of Geralds was moving towards the group. There were three in this phalanx. They did not seem to be carrying any weapons.

Styx fired again. Two one second bursts to each head, with the same result as before.

Luke fired at the chest area of the Gerald approaching him. Most of the 9mm bullets seemed to have no effect; they were absorbed easily by the metal exo-skeleton of the android. One or two rounds hit parts inside; they caused the android to make some strange movements, and hesitate a little, but it continued to Luke. As it reached him it raised an arm; very much in a Frankenstein's monster manner, aiming at Luke's neck. Its other arm swung high, threatening to come crashing down on the college lecturer's head. He saw this, and, trying to dodge it placed his neck in the grasp of the other hand.

Styx saw the threat, levelled his Uzzi, and took careful aim at the outstretched arm. The one second burst began at Gerald's elbow, and then moved up to the shoulder. The arm virtually ceased to exist. Luke was able to throw it away as the android fell to one side because of the weight of bullets hitting it.

Styx had to turn his attention away from the side of the room in order to do this. He did not see Gerald moving in from the side. Jake did. He intercepted the android when he saw it was rushing to attack Luke. Gerald did not even look towards Jake as he swiped him to one side. He then took hold of the Uzzi at the same time as elbowing Styx on the side of his head so hard that his head nearly came off, breaking his neck.

As Styx fell, the Gerald then took hold of the Uzzi from the falling Styx. He had no hesitation pointing it at Luke, who quickly spun round to shoot at the android. The first bullets hit Gerald in the chest with no obvious result. Luke moves the weapon up to concentrate his hits on the head - as he did this the android opened fire with the Uzzi. Only five bullets remained in the gun. They were fired almost simultaneously. Four of them hit Luke. Gerald turned the now empty weapon on Galina Danilenko. But the damage done to his head now effected his balance. As he fell to the ground the Uzzi clattered loudly and Luke crumpled alongside it with blood spurting from his chest.

Suddenly the screen behind the astronauts burst open and the imposing figure of a man over six feet tall with a shock of unruly white hair and strange hexagonal blue spectacles strode forwards.

The Marquis of Libeaux called across the vast room with confidence,

'Stop this now.' He scanned the Geralds, 'The First Law cannot be countermanded. Return to your stations.'

The remaining androids all about-faced, and then marched away without hesitation, or a word.

The Marquis turned his attentions to Xanthros, but he was no longer there.

'Where the ... ? Where's he gone now?' he exclaimed as three Geralds emerged from the plastic curtain behind him.

Michelle noticed one of the Uzzi guns on the floor near her feet. She slowly moved it closer with her foot, and then picked it up.

The Marquis spoke to the group,

'Come with me – I have something to show you.'

The astronauts and company looked astonished. They centred on Ash and Jake without speaking.

Ash looked up to the Marquis, who seemed to be waiting for them to move towards him. He turned to the double doors behind him. One Gerald on either side opened the doors.

Ash and Jake tried to see what was on the other side.

Jake spoke before moving,

'Wait a minute; why should we trust you? We don't know who you are,' he indicated the Geralds, 'and these bastards –' he waved in the direction of the androids, 'they look very much like the androids that tried to kill us on Mars, then all the way back, and just now' He looked at Ash, who nodded his support.

The Marquis said quietly,

'Stop messing about, come with me; I have something to show you.'

As he said this a medical team appeared as if from nowhere, and began taking care of Styx and Luke.

Galina moved towards Luke, but he was dead. She turned towards Styx, but was barred by one of the medical team who simply shook his head. It was then that she thought he looked the same as the Geralds, but dressed as a medical orderly. Before she had chance to check the others she felt a hand on her arm.

Ash began to follow the Marquis, Jake went across to Galina, and took her by the arm. Galina looked across at Michelle as she caught up with Ash. She saw that as they held hands for mutual comfort Michelle hid the Uzzi. Jake took hold of Galina in his arms briefly. Hoshi quickly bent down to scoop up the other Uzzi, she gently touched Galina's shoulder as she moved past her to follow Ash.

They moved into a room that looked and smelled like a cross between a laboratory and an electronics assembly setup.

Benches ran the length of this room. On the far side another two men entered.

Jake leaned towards Ash,

'At least it's not more of the goddamn androids.'

Del Banco and Mrs Hapsburg made their way towards the Marquis. As they moved through the room the Marquis introduced first himself, and then the others to each other,

'I am the Marquis of Libeaux, these are two of my colleagues, Mrs Hapsburg and Mr del Banco. We are members of a group known to some as the Illuminate.'

Del Banco added,

'You have already had dealings with Xanthros of course.'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'And his sister, Ninkharsag – whom you know as Semeramis.'

Ash was direct,

'This is all very interesting, but exactly what are you up to here?'

The Marquis was equally as direct; the hexagonal blue spectacle lenses seemed to focus in on Ash as he replied,

'All this, as you put it, is because we are leaving.'

Jake said,

'Already? We have not had chance to get acquainted yet.'

Hoshi spoke up,

'How do you mean, leaving? How many of you are there? Leaving to where?'

Galina said,

'Yes, you mentioned Sem and Xanthros ...'

Jake added,

'Yes, I hope you are taking that, ...' he paused, looked at Michelle and Galina, then continued, 'gentleman with you.'

The Marquis replied to this barrage of questions as best he could,

'We are six people, we are returning to our home planet, well, it was once our home planet, but we have been here so long now we have evolved ...'

Michelle was beginning to find all this too much,

'Wha ...? You mean to tell me that Xanthros is an alien?'

Del Banco attempted a reply,

'What is an alien? You Americans call anyone from abroad an alien; and yet you were all from a foreign country originally,'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'Apart from the Native Americans, who you nearly wiped out.'

Del Banco continued,

'Yes, we came from somewhere else; but that was a very long time ago – we have been here for a lot longer than you. It is all relative.'

Mrs Hapsburg added,

'We were instrumental in shaping your development by introducing the Neanderthal strain in the first place.'

The Marquis looked at Ash and Jake as he said,

'But then again, you already know this, do you not?'

Michelle turned to Ash with a puzzled look on her face,

'Did you?'

'Yes, that is the secret we have been keeping. We knew that it would cause mass panic. But at the same time we knew that we would never be safe, we cannot unlearn it, but we can avoid anyone else having the burden.'

Jake said to the Marquis,

'And now you have spilled the beans.'

Galina looked at him,

'You could have shared the secret with us.'

Ash and Jake shook their heads, Ash it was who said,

'No we couldn't. It would not have been fair on you.'

Michelle's cell phone rang. Everyone knew who it was.

She answered it as she turned towards the rear of the room,

'Hi. Things are a bit taught here.'

'Yes, I know. Remember? It is this whole situation that I am ringing you about. Put me on speaker.'

Michelle stabbed the phone, and then placed it between the two groups. Sem continued,

'Xanthros and Romanov are working together with two Geralds to hijack Totem.'

The Marquis replied,

'What, all of it?'

Semeramis said,

'I can't say any more, I don't know how much they can intercept this call. I suggest we meet up now.'

The Marquis said,

'Yes, but if this call is being listened to, how?'

Jake turned to Ash and said,

'Alamo?'

At first he didn't follow his line of thought, and then it clicked.

After some thought Ash leaned towards the phone, and said into it,

'Sorry, Sem. You'll have to follow us on this one, and make your own way to the meeting place.'

'Ok.'
Chapter Sixteen

Totem

The four astronauts did not explain what was meant by the Alamo. They knew, and as long as the information remained in their heads, no-one else would know.

In a strange role reversal Ash said to the Marquis and his group,

'Follow me.'

They walked back out to the dusty road. Here Ash paused, moved closer to the Marquis, and said in a conspiratorial whisper,

'Do they have any sort of tracking device?' nodding towards the Geralds.

The Marquis stroked his beard before replying,

'Probably, do we? Do you?'

Mrs Hapsburg said,

'With the Hilbert Transformation we are probably tracked in hyperspace anyway.'

Ash did not pretend to understand,

'We know a way around that.'

He turned, and continued his journey, leading them towards the covered hyperbolic chamber.

He moved the sheet to one side, examining it as he did so.

'Graphine Kevlar if I'm not mistaken.' He said to Jake.

They found their way in. Closing the door del Banco said,

'I see what you have done; very clever. I hope Semeramis can work out what happened.'

Michelle said,

'She will. Smart cookie that one.'

Ash was quick to say,

'So will the others. The only advantage we now have is being able to communicate between ourselves without anyone overhearing.' He turned to the Marquis, 'What is going on, and why have we been brought here?'

Barely stopping for breath the Marquis launched in to his explanation,

'I said that we are leaving. We are going back to a planet system you know as Sirius C.'

There was a clatter from behind the group as Michelle's Uzzi hit the ground just before she did.

She was standing just behind and to one side of Ash when she fainted.

Ash lifted her head, Galina took her pulse.

The Marquis said,

'I'm sorry; the information must have been too much of a shock for her.'

Hoshi took a purposeful grip on her Uzzi as she said,

'Or was it something else?'

Jake quickly looked at the gun,

'That's empty.' He said.

'Wha ... How do you know?' she said.

'Never mind that, unclip the mag, and turn it around. There is another mag taped on to it. That's it. Now be so good as to put it on safety for now.'

Michelle was coming round, a chair had been found, and she was made comfortable. Mrs Hapsburg said,

'I think we had better get some seats here.'

Seating was arranged; there were three laboratory stools, two swivel chairs on wheels, and a couple of packing cases.

The Marquis continued as quickly as he could,

'I'm sorry if this is a shock to you; but there is more to come.'

Silence fell upon the group.

'Our work here is done. The effects of the Tsunami on our biggest success, combined with the information about our existence, means that you must now be left to sort things out for yourselves.'

Jake was quick to spot an alternative viewpoint,

'You mean that it is no longer safe for you to remain here.'

'That too.' The Marquis admitted, 'neither is it safe for you people.'

Hoshi then said,

'If I remember correctly, isn't Sirius some nine light years away?'

Del Banco answered,

'Yes.'

Jake said,

'We are six humans. We need a lot of food. The Phoenix was designed for the short journey to Mars; we had to take enough burgers and doughnuts for two years. How big will your ship have to be to carry enough for us to survive such a long journey?'

Ash agreed,

'He's right; if the ship was the size of a Walmart store it would not be big enough. And where is this ship? I am pretty sure we would be able to spot something that big.'

The Marquis calmly replied,

'We have developed ways of overcoming these difficulties, Ash said before The Marquis could continue,

'You mean Totem?'

The Marquis seemed pleasantly surprised by this,

'Not exactly; Totem is only part of it. Speaking of which, it is being threatened as we speak.'

As he was finishing his statement light flooded into the hyperbolic chamber as the door was flung open.

Hoshi and Galina had no hesitation in moving to either side – guns at the ready.

Four Geralds strode into the interior.

The two Uzzis fired almost simultaneously.

Less than one second later four heads ceased to function. They all stayed in place because they were made of almost indestructible advanced metals; the chinks in their armour lay in the installed sensors that were needed to function. The bullets smashed their way in, and then ricocheted around inside the head, mashing up delicate electronic components.

Arms waved around aimlessly, legs seemed to take on a life of their own as they tried to keep balance. One by one they failed, and the Geralds fell.

Jake was first to speak; he turned to The Marquis and said,

'Friends of yours?'

He replied,

'They could have been.'

Ash commented,

'Not any more'

The Marquis kept his cool,

'I suppose we'll never know now, will we?'

One of the Geralds standing behind del Banco said,

'Yes we will; they were hostile.'

The Marquis thought momentarily before saying,

'Well, our plan of action is simple; get to the Totem, and find out how many more hostiles there are.'

The group of eight very disparate people and three androids moved off with only two guns that had very little ammunition. Also most of them had no idea what was happening.

The group half ran, half walked, out an Agusta Westland VH-71 Kestrel helicopter. The Marquis took the controls with one of the Geralds as co-pilot.

Del Banco sat with Ash and Michelle during the flight. Conversation was not easy with the engine noise in the chopper, they all donned headsets and microphones then del Banco tried to bring everyone up to speed,

'I know you know quite a lot about us, Ash and Jake, I presume that you have not had exposure to a lot of it, Michelle.'

Michelle replied,

'I was a monitor under Xanthros, but had no clue as to what Ash and Jake found.'

Ash said,

'And I have no idea how that connects with what you have here, what is all this about?'

'Ever since it became probable that the people of Earth would find out about our manipulations of their past development we decided that it would be prudent to have a sort of 'get out clause' if you will. So we have been developing an escape system over the last two years.'

Michelle gasped,

'Jeeeze.'

Ash was beginning to put two and two together,

'These will be the missions that Steve Luke told us about.'

'Yes, Ash. We tried to keep things quiet, but missions to the moon are not exactly easy to hide. And after the Tsunami, well, things in space went very quiet; as a result they were noticed.'

As they thundered over the city of Harrisburg Jake asked,

'And I presume we are headed for Totem now?'

'Yes, let us hope that we are not too late.'

The helicopter flew over dense forest. This did not look like the area around Cape Canaveral.

Michelle was straining to look where they were headed through the side window. She got a glimpse of something out of the ordinary.

At first it looked like a small village had been planted in a clearing in the forest. As they drew closer a flatter, cleared area came into view – then she saw it; it looked like a copy of the Eiffel Tower, but a different shape with a gigantic white rocket standing at its core.

It was difficult to assess size at this point, but Ash said,

'That thing must be bigger than Artimis.' He referred to the Mars launch vehicle as first envisaged.

The helicopter landed some half a mile away from the launch complex.

The astronauts and Michelle stood looking at the rocket as the Marquis shut down the chopper.

As he dismounted from the machine he said to the group,

'Come with me.'

They all filed into a room similar to the one they had left at the Arsenal – including the plastic curtain. The Marquis began,

'You now possess knowledge about us. We always said that our work must always be in complete secrecy; if our subjects knew what we were doing it would influence the outcomes to such an extent that the whole changes would be prejudiced.' He did something to the plastic curtain, 'So our decision was made for us many eons ago.' The curtain parted. A darkened room lay behind it. He made some adjustments to a hidden consul. 'Here we have our rendezvous setup.' A series of lights began to appear. A large model of the surface of the moon became illuminated. Displays, both large and small flickered on around the room. On closer inspection the moonscape had strange-looking buildings on it.

The astronauts stared in disbelief as they noticed something very unusual about the model. At first the level of detail was what astounded them. Then they noticed movement within the model. Vehicles and people were moving around; lights in and around the buildings were showing a strange delicacy.

Even Hoshi was looking wide-eyed at the spectacle before them.

Jake was first to speak, but it was not coherent,

'Whaaaa? Tha...?' he pointed, then turned to Ash, then back to the moonscape, 'There's ... Jeeeeze.' He shook his head.

The Marquis continued,

'You could say that this is a scale representation of our moon base – but that would not be accurate; this is the base we have on the moon.'

The faces around just stared in disbelief.

He explained further,

'We established this base on the far side of the moon some time ago; round about the time the US Navy were experimenting with Operation Moonbounce.' He thought for a second or two, 'Around 1954 I think it was.'

Galina Danilenko pointed at a vehicle moving on the model as she said,

'There is movement on there.'

'Yes; This is a live projection of the facility. It is provided by a series of Microbots in orbit around the moon. They are so small they are undetectable.'

Jake moved around the model, to find that it was truly three- dimensional. He moved his head down close to the hologram, and then turned to look towards where the image would be projected from.

The Marquis advised,

'I wouldn't look up like that; there are many Lazers building up that series of images – they could strike you blind.'

Jake kept his head close to the image before him as he turned to look at it in more detail.

'Is that a Gerald?' he asked.

The Marquis did not have to look closely before confirming,

'Yes. There are quite a few on the moon.'

Hoshi shook her head as she asked,

'And what is the exact purpose of this?'

'I suppose you could call it a staging post. We are returning to our home near the star you know as Sirius. It would be impossible to build a ship capable of that journey using earthly resources, so we have built a staging post where our own starship can pick us up.'

Hoshi was not satisfied with the answer,

'No; I mean how does this relate to us?'

The Marquis turned to look directly at Hoshi, light from the display illuminated their faces as he began his reply,

'You are the only people who know all of this about us. We would like you to come with us.'

Ash quickly looked at Michelle before replying,

'You must be joking. We cannot take a space journey of that magnitude. Sirius is over nine light years away – how long would that take?'

Jake added,

'How on earth can you feed us for a journey like that?'

Ash came back,

'If the ship were the size of a Walmart store, it still would not be big enough.'

The Marquis smiled gently as he shook his head,

'You don't understand. Yes, the journey is a long one. Even we do not know how long; it depends on position of so many things relative to each other, and how they move around the cosmos. But suffice to say it is going to be somewhere around 60 of your earth years, but a more realistic number would be 100 years.'

Del Banco interrupted,

'That is to allow for the elasticity of time due to the speeds involved.'

Jake was getting exasperated,

'Just listen to yourself – we cannot do that kind of time, even if you could feed us and supply oxygen, plus everything else we need to survive...'

The Marquis interrupted him,

'We have perfected what you call suspended animation.' He paused, 'Everyone on board is placed in statis. The androids you refer to as Geralds were developed to fly these vast distances, whilst replacing themselves during the flight.'

Jake just said,

'Wha ...' he looked at Galina, who was now close by his side. His face contorted slightly, 'What you think?'

She thought for a moment,

'The possibility of sleeping through the next 60 -100 years, and then waking up to find out what developments had been made – fantastic.'

Jake brought her back down to earth with a bump,

'But you will not be on Earth; you will be somewhere alien.'

'Ahhh. That is the cruncher. Then I don't want to go.'

Jake agreed with her,

'Me neither. What if they do strange things with food?'

Ash said,

'You mean like the Norwegians?'

'Exactly – or the Indonesians.'

Ash asked Michelle,

'Would you like to live on a foreign, distant planet?

'Not really, not without you.'

Ash asked Hoshi,

'What about you, Hoshi?'

She pondered a little before saying,

'The prospect is intriguing ... to be the first person to do so many things.' She was getting excited about the prospects, 'and these people obviously have developments beyond our comprehension.'

Jake spoke up again,

'Haven't you had enough space travel recently?'

She looked away from the display for the first time, gently shaking her head, she smiled,

'That is not the only thing going here; this is like travelling in a Rolls-Royce, whereas we have been on a cross-town bus.'

Jake said,

'Well all I can say is; don't forget to take a packed lunch.' He smiled at her as he held out his hand, 'But the best of luck.'

'Thanks, I'm looking forward to it.'

The Marquis turned to Semeramis,

'Could you contact Xanthros, and have him meet us here?'

This was a surprise move for Ash and Jake.

They looked at each other with worried looks.

The Marquis explained,

'Don't worry, we all go back a long way – plans sometimes have to be altered. Things have changed here on Earth so much that we must all leave now.' He pointed at the image before them, 'Hence the establishment on the far side of the moon.' He addressed the gathered people as a group, 'The fact that you all know what has been happening, and how, means little now considering the disruption on Earth; so we have decided to offer you the chance to come with us, or stay.'

Ash spoke up,

'I think I speak for everyone else here when I say that we would rather stay here, except Hoshi.'

The Marquis nodded as he pointed towards the outside, 'There are two rockets almost ready for launch. Del Banco, Mrs Hapsburg, Romanov and Rockefeller will leave in the first. Myself, Semeramis and Hoshi Masuto will follow in the second rocket.'

They all went across to the crew preparation room, closer to the launch site.

Ash talked with the Marquis on the way over,

'This rocket we saw on the way in – developed from the Orion is it?'

'No; it is the Orion. The Orion was built to take up to six astronauts to the moon and back. Why should we need to improve on that?'

'So it was perfect for the job? Straight off the shelf, as it were.'

'Au contraire; we designed it for this purpose. The NASA requirement just happened to fit as well.'

Ash almost stopped dead in his tracks; now he knew why parts of the space program continued to function after the Tsunami.

Jake was surprised to find that these people needed spacesuits for their journey to the moon, but not like the normal outfits that they were used to.

He said to Hoshi,

'I hope you can learn how to use this kit.'

'There's very little to learn.' She replied.

They all took the opportunity for their last farewells in the crew preparation room.

Michelle spoke to Hoshi before the top part of her spacesuit was put into place,

'What can you say at a time like this?'

'There is not a lot we can say; this is a wonderful chance to see things never even dreamed of by men.'

Ash was standing between Michelle and Hoshi when he said,

'You will see things not yet developed or thought of – one hundred years of advancement before you even get there.'

Jake added,

'And all of this done by a very advanced civilisation.'

Final farewells were exchanged before Hoshi was sealed into her suit, and linked to her life support box. They all stood around and watched the first rocket launch.

The familiar countdown seemed somehow out of place, but all the usual elements were there – granted, the mission control was smaller than the one at Houston, but the place came to life in exactly the same way it did at NASA.

As the clock ticked down to zero the background hum of activity gradually died down until finally only one voice called,

Gerald in Launch Control Centre said,

'Main engine start.'

The sounds of the powerful engines filled the room. Everyone could feel as well as hear the low rumbling.

Then Gerald called out,

'Ignition.'

Followed less than one second later,

'Lift-off.'

The vibrations inside the cabin subjected the four people to extremely violent oscillations.

At eleven seconds after lift-off, del Banco, in charge of the spacecraft, called,

'Roll Commence.' then, 'Pitch Tracking.' After a slight pause, 'Roll Complete.'

In Mission Control the steely silence continued as Michelle looked around at the people in the room. She couldn't help thinking that she should know some of them; but the only people she recognised with any certainty were Geralds.

At exactly 20 seconds after lift-off del Banco came over the radio again,

'EDS manual.'

The Mission Controller said,

'Go/No Go for staging.'

This was repeated by del Banco, followed by,

'Inboard off. Outboard off. Staging.' the sounds of another rocket, in the distance, could be heard. 'S-11 65%.' He watched his panels, 'S-11 Separator light out.' He tapped a keyboard as he watched the panel, and then confirmed, 'Tower jettison, Mark, Mode eleven.' More tapping of keys, 'Interactive Guidance Mode Initiate.' Then he called Mission Control, 'Spacecraft Go/No Go.'

The reply came back,

'Guidance Go/No Go.' A few seconds later, 'Trajectory Go/No Go.'

Del Banco from the spacecraft replied,

'Go/No Go.'

Mission Control said,

'S four B to orbit capability.'

'Spacecraft Go/No Go.'

'Go/No Go for staging.'

'S eleven off. S four B ignition.' One second later, 'S four B 65%.'

The Mission commander at the topmost desk said,

'Spacecraft Go/No Go for orbit.'

In the capsule, travelling at 17,000 mph Del Banco said,

'Single engine cutoff.'

Mission Control,

'Insertion.'

The ship had entered into Earth orbit eleven minutes thirty one seconds after lift-off.
Chapter Seventeen

Phoenix

In a high orbit way above the Earth another spaceship maintained itself.

The occupants were also keeping a watching brief on the planet below them.

The Scutters on board Phoenix were programmed for maintenance to a high order – this also included developing whatever was to hand to evolve the ship into something better suited to the task at hand

The ship no longer looked like it once did. The Scutters had been busy evolving themselves too. Stuart was still there, but he no longer resembled a human. In the time since humans had left the ship to return to Earth the Scutters had been 'improving' him to perform his tasks better. Converting both his legs into arms was very useful, given the weightless environment. Visual sensors had also been installed on the back of his head as well as near where his feet once were. One of his hands now sported what can only be described as the robot's version of a Swiss army knife – but this one is self-propelled.

Such were the changes to a figure that was known to us.

The mission of the Phoenix had now changed – so the appearance was different also.

The remaining Sarsen no longer resembled a re-entry vehicle, but a dedicated anti-rocket missile.

After the Tsunami the Illuminate could only just contain the situations developing in what was left of the NASA organisation, although their part, the Totem, was developed away from the destroyed main complexes in Florida. There was little they could do about the Phoenix. All of the systems were now given over to their own internal requirements and orders. One of these orders came from Xanthros when they were orbiting Mars.

The order was simple; 'Do not let any ship leave the planet.'

Now they were orbiting a planet, and a ship has just gone into orbit.

The much modified Stuart was the nearest to human on the Phoenix. Improved and enhanced Scutters made up the majority of moving elements, they were all interlinked with the main computers on the ship.

This interlinking meant that any misunderstanding within the system was exacerbated without intervention from the human programmers.

The last communications the ship had had with their human programmers was when Xanthros tried to get them to stop Ash and his colleagues from leaving Mars. The patches that Xanthros had applied to their original programming were now causing massive problems within their electronic brains.

Confusion led them to think the ship that had just entered an orbit around the same planet as them was a legitimate target.

But because they were in orbit around the same planet does not mean that they were close to each other. Del Banco and co were over Africa, the Phoenix was somewhere over Japan. And they were going in completely different planes.

One result of the Tsunami on Earth was that the radar coverage for these launches was well below what would normally be expected; so the people on Earth did not know about the Phoenix.

Stuart and his robots, on the other hand, certainly knew about del Banco's rocket, but they did not know that he was only going to do two and a half orbits before moving off to the moon – and the Phoenix would not be able to catch them there, due to orbiting restraints.

A sympathetic orbit was plotted by the nav computer whilst Stuart tried to come up with an interception plan. This was not an interceptor fighter – it carried no armament for a start, and was limited by the need to remain in Earth orbit. The nav computer was not equipped to work out the computations involving relative speeds in three dimensions for two moving ships with unknown course changes. But what Stuart did was simplify the problem. He estimated where the rocket was likely to be in four hours' time, and told the nav computer to aim at that spot.

The old ship creaked and groaned at the new gravity strains as she manoeuvred around to meet the Totem.

Del Banco and his crew had very little view on the outside world. Even if they could see clearly the chances of seeing the Phoenix would have been negligible unless one of them was practising astronomy, and happened to notice one extra star in the firmament.

The Scutters were heavily involved in modifying the Sarsen for its last mission. By modifying parts of the nav computer on board they allowed Stuart to designate any given star, or point of light, to tell the machine to head for that point.

The Marquis monitored the flight plan of the Totem from Mission Control on Earth.

They were entering the phase of their journey where they would be leaving their orbit in order to head for the moon.

The Phoenix did not come close to the orbit of the Totem. When the computers assessed that they would not get any closer they notified Stuart, who by now had taken his place inside the Sarsen.

He initiated his release from the Mother Ship, and lit up his main engine. A five second burn was all that was needed to bring him closer to the Totem, but it was moving at 85 degrees relative to him. He aimed at a spot to the rear of it. As he pulled the Sarsen round he detected the Totem firing up its main engine to leave orbit.

The new nav computer programme easily picked up the burn, and warned Stuart that his quarry was now accelerating away at an increasing rate of knots.

Stuart fired up the main engine, but this was not few seconds' burn; it was left on full throttle. The Sarsen gained rapidly, especially when the Totem stopped its engine.

Small manoeuvring jets on the nose of the Sarsen kept it pointing at the Totem. The Nav Computer guided the missile unerringly to its target; the closer it got the easier it became to keep on track. Stuart had to do nothing.

The nose of the Sarsen clipped the engine nozzle at the rear of the Totem, pushing it off course. The engine broke away as the whole rocket began to pivot round. The Sarsen was still at full power; Stuart saw the Totem approaching his window just before it collided with his vehicle.

The blue spectacles of the Marquis reflected a myriad of warning lights as the Totem began to disintegrate. Then all of the telemetry went dead.

The Marquis looked straight ahead as he said,

'Something went wrong; we may have lost the ship. But maybe not.' He addressed the group, 'Come with me.'

He led them into another room down a corridor.

As they entered the room he turned to Hoshi, and said,

'You thought you would be going into Statis for the journey to Sirius. What we told you has been superseded – we have just perfected another way to survive the journey. This is the way we were going to do it.' He moved towards another 3D lazer projection, this time showing a piece of machinery, 'This device is capable of not only detecting and controlling a wormhole, but it can now create one.'

Ash and Jake looked at each other in awe. They scrutinized the projection. It was difficult to assess the size or scale of this alien object.

Ash was first to speak,

'How big is this? Where is it? How do you intend using it?'

Jake threw in,

'What do you mean, 'Maybe not'?'

The Marquis looked at Jake,

'Pardon, how do you mean, 'Maybe not.?'

'You said, or implicated, that they may not have lost the ship.'

The Marquis almost smiled as he replied,

'It is complicated. And related to what I am about to show you.' He turned to the 3D image before them, 'Here we have a device that can actually create a wormhole in space time.' He addressed the group again, 'The machine you see here is in a converted farmhouse half an hour south of Bergerac airport in France; we needed somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The one we were going to use on board the ship that would have taken you to Sirius.' He took a breath as he addressed the next part to Jake, 'The Maybe comes from the possibility that Totem may have gone into a wormhole created by itself once it got into range of the Lunar base. But we cannot be sure. Until we hear from the Lunar base we cannot launch the second Totem.'

Galina said to Hoshi,

'Are you sure you want to go through with all this?'

Hoshi replied,

'I feel I have missed out on a big adventure.'

The Marquis said,

'A much bigger adventure than you realise I'm afraid; we have not tested the whole system with a human.'

A message came in from the lunar station,

'Martineau from Back Lunar. We have lost contact with Totem One. I repeat - we have lost contact with Totem One. Do you have any information?'

Marq sat in front of the screen. He looked at the Gerald in front of him,

'We do not have radar coverage from here. Is it possible that they went into a wormhole?'

'Negative, sir. There are still transponder readings coming from the area where she disappeared from.'

Marq looked dejected as he lowered his head momentarily.

When he raised it again he said,

'That was our last hope.' He got up from the desk, took a deep breath, and continued, 'I am the last of the Illuminate. I must now make amends for things we did not control, or allowed to get destructive.'

Ash was first to speak,

'I know that to simply say we are sorry for your loss hardly covers it, but, well, we are sorry.'

It was surprising that the loss hardly seemed to affect Marq,

'Thank you. There must have been some sort of malfunction. But that pales into insignificance compared with what has happened here on Earth.'

Ash said,

'Getting back to things here on Earth – what are you going to do now?'

The Marquis thought for a moment, and then announced,

'I feel that we have done a massive disservice to mankind here. I cannot help feeling that retribution must be made in some way, but how?'

Michelle said,

'How do you mean, 'retribution must be made'?'

'We have been trying to guide you people for generations. There have been many setbacks to your development; usually caused by one individual – Atilla the Hun for instance. Now we have lost most of our family, and you have lost a great chunk of your civilised world, coupled with the arrival of the wormhole creator I believe we can now go back to change things for the better.'

Jake put forward an idea,

'This wormhole thing. Isn't that something to do with time travel?'

The Marquis replied,

'Yes. That is one reason why we had to place it in the middle of France – we needed an area that has not changed for a long time.'

'One man in recent history has caused more misery than any other – by a long way. If you could go back in time and kill him, that would make up for messing up here, and cover your error too; because if you have been more than monitoring our development, how did you allow him to cause such ...'

Ash interrupted him,

'You mean kill Hitler?'

Jake said,

'Why not; he nearly died during the First World War – how things would have worked out better if'n he had been killed.'

The Marquis looked down at the projection, and then quietly said,

'We would have to find a way to govern the wormhole to end not only at a specific time, but in an exact place, too.' He looked up, took a deep breath, and then declared, 'It is possible.'

He looked at Semeramis, she said,

'I will have to do a lot of number crunching, but it could work.'

'No you won't.' Marq said, 'We have self-developing computers – they are now becoming much better than we could have imagined; they will do the calculus for you.'

Jake said,

'It sounds like we have a system here – what could possibly go wrong?'

'Thrones of Mars', book one, 'The Friendly Robot Conspiracy' is out at http://bit.ly/2JiGxr0 or for a free download see my website – www.writerlloyd.com

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