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  Initially the center was designed to link with the DEW line to counter the threat of Soviet bombers. It was updated then to track intercontinental ballistic missiles. As technology advanced, the mission of the center also evolved to the extent where it tracked SCUD missile launches during the Gulf War.

  After the end of the Cold War, more and more attention was paid to space and peacetime missions, such as coordinating space shuttle flights and tracking drug smugglers. Upon receipt of a warning order from Major Quinn, the facility had shifted its capabilities to tracking the Talon from Ararat to Kazakhstan. The link-up with the four dragon-craft was captured by a KH-14 spy satellite to the degree that Artad and his followers were clearly visible walking across the desert and hoarding the Talon. The destruction of the dragon-craft was also captured.

  As the Talon accelerated into the atmosphere, tracking was shifted from space down-looks to ground up-shots. The Air Force operators kept the Talon firmly on their tracking screens, monitoring it as carefully as they would the space shuttle.

  MARS

  While the rest of the Airlia vehicles headed toward Mons Olympus, a lone tracked vehicle rolled over to the site of the Face. Each track pad was over a meter long, the entire length of the tread over eighty meters. The two tracks supported a thirty-meter-long bullet-shaped pod with dual manipulating arms at the front. In the crew compartment, three Airlia manned the controls.

  The Face had already been largely excavated by the mech-machines before the Cydonia guardian went off-line. The original array there had been specially designed using equipment brought from the Airlia home world. After it was destroyed, the resulting face figure had emerged from the rubble piled up at the spot. It no longer held that shape. The center had been dug through by mech-machines scavenging material. The vehicle slowly made its way up the rubble, treads crushing boulders beneath them.

  It navigated over the top and down into the center, where the digging had gone the deepest. Carefully the Airlia edged their vehicle into the hole. At the bottom there was a dim green glow, and they headed in that direction. Just before the bottom was reached even the huge treads began to lose their traction and the vehicle lurched.

  On the rear top a panel slid open and a tube extended outward. It fired a harpoon back the way they had come and the four-foot-wide barbed head slammed into the rubble, digging deep. A cable extended from it to the craft. Using the harpoon as an anchor, the Airlia slowly spun out cable, getting closer to the glow.

  One of the Airlia in the control compartment slid his hands into articulated gloves and took control of the arms. Gingerly the large metal claws at the end dug through. Finally, one of them gently cradled the source of the green glow: a multifaceted crystal, eight feet in diameter. The arm lifted the glowing green crystal out of the debris, then carefully brought it over the top of the vehicle and halted.

  From a hatch near the front, an Airlia in black armor exited the craft, a pack on its back supplying air. Special boots kept it attached to the skin of the craft as it made its way to the wide middle part just below the crystal. The Airlia knelt, sliding open an access panel and tapping in a code on the hexagonal display revealed. A large cargo door slid open, revealing an open bay.

  The Airlia was speaking to the one controlling the arm. Slowly the crystal came down. The Airlia on the outside anxiously made sure it didn't touch the sides of the hatch, guiding it with delicate touches. As soon as it was clear, the Airlia ordered the controller to halt movement. The Airlia then slid between the crystal and the sides of the hatch into the cargo bay. It checked the cradle that had been specially built to accept the crystal, then ordered the controller to continue.

  Gingerly, the crystal was placed in the cradle. The Airlia in the bay waited until all its weight was supported, then gave the all clear. The metal fingers released the crystal and the arm retracted from the bay. The Airlia touched a control panel and the cradle locked down on the crystal securing it.

  The bay pressurized. A door in the front slid open, revealing a corridor, but the Airlia didn't leave right away. It pulled off its black helmet, revealing pale skin and red cat eyes. It regarded the crystal for almost a minute, then slowly, almost reluctantly, turned and headed back toward the crew compartment.

  Reeling in the cable and with the treads tearing in reverse, the vehicles slowly backed up out of the hole. As it crested the top, the crew turned it around. It moved downslope toward the line gouged in the red sand by the other vehicles, heading toward Mons Olympus.

  CHAPTER 7: THE PRESENT

  * * *

  CAMP ROWE, NORTH CAROLINA

  Major Quinn had been the operations officer for Area 51 when Majestic-12 ran it. When Majestic's corruption was uncovered by Mike Turcotte and Lisa Duncan and subsequently purged, Quinn's ignorance of the illegal activities of the organization and his expertise at running the facility had kept him in that position.

  Here at Camp Rowe, thirty miles west of the Fort Bragg main post, he was the linchpin for the survivors of Area 51, coordinating their message traffic, doing whatever research they required of him, and forwarding information to whoever would listen in the United States government. With the loss of Artad's and Aspasia's Shadow's guardians, he was finding the latter to be much easier. He had already passed on word of the defeat of Artad and Aspasia's Shadow. While the world was celebrating the defeat of the aliens, he was trying to keep track of the survivors in both camps.

  He had a direct link to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, which kept track of electronic traffic, and Space Command, buried deep inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. From the former he was monitoring the desperate attempts of Guides around the world to contact Aspasia's Shadow and the silence from their former leader. From the latter, the news was less positive. Space Command had tracked the Talon via satellite from Mount Ararat to Kazakhstan and now had it on an upward trajectory.

  He was working out of an old aircraft hangar on the edge of a runway on which Special Forces used to train and from which it conducted airborne operations. The location was guarded by members of the army's elite Delta Force. The Area 51 survivors had been forced to move here after Area 51 was attacked by government forces operating under classified orders. Exactly who had issued those orders was something Quinn was still trying to track down, as every government agency he had contacted so far professed ignorance.

  He'd even talked to the commander of the unit that had conducted the raid, who had given Quinn little to work with other than that the orders had the proper clearance and the unit had crippled the base and delivered Lisa Duncan to an airfield outside of New Orleans, where an Osprey aircraft waited.

  Quinn understood the strangeness of the situation. He'd operated in the gray world of covert ops for a long time and knew that with the proper security and authorization clearance, one could do just about anything with no questions asked. And whoever had snatched Lisa Duncan and destroyed Area 51 obviously had had the clearance and authorization.

  He turned away from his computer screen as he recognized the voice in his headset. "Quinn?"

  "Yes, Major Turcotte?"

  "The Swarm has Duncan."

  Quinn frowned as he considered that. They had assumed that a new Majestic-12 committee, a backup of the original, had snatched Duncan and destroyed the original Area 51 base. Quinn had since determined there was no indication that there was another Majestic committee, but he had assumed that one or the other sides of the alien civil war had been behind her kidnapping and the destruction of Area 51.

  "I want to know where it's hiding," Turcotte continued. "What do you have so far?"

  Quinn relayed the information about the airfield outside of New Orleans that he had acquired from the troops who had been ordered to attack Area 51. "I've queried every government agency now that we're back in favor, and received negative responses about any further information."

  "Get me more," Turcotte ordered. "I want to know where she was taken from there. Track down the Osprey.
Someone had to be piloting it."

  "I'll try."

  "Do better than try."

  There was a short silence, then Turcotte's voice came hack over the radio. "I'm sorry about that. I know you're doing your best."

  "What are you going to do?" Quinn asked.

  "We need to get the mothership — and the Master Guardian — out of here. Do you have a location on the Talon that was taken from here?"

  "Already in space, on a trajectory toward Mars."

  "Time to target?"

  "Say again?"

  "How long until it gets to Mars?" Turcotte asked, reining in his impatience.

  "Based on current speed and what we observed when Aspasia came here from Mars on board a Talon, I estimate a little over a day. But this one hasn't even made it into space yet."

  "And how long does Kincaid estimate it will take the Airlia to finish the array?"

  "He says it's impossible to estimate as everything has changed now that the mech-machines aren't functioning. It appears as if the Airlia from Cydonia are heading there to complete it by hand."

  "All right," Turcotte said. "We're going to bring this mothership back to the States. Then we're going to take it to Mars. I need backup — people able to operate in that kind of environment. See what you can get us from Space Command. They must have more than the team that went up on the shuttle."

  "Yes, sir—" Quinn paused as a new report flowed across his computer screen. "I think you might want to know that it appears Aspasia's Shadow booby-trapped Easter Island. They're trying to evacuate it right now. Artad apparently did the same thing to Qian-Ling — we have reports of a massive explosion in that vicinity."

  "Can the fleet get all those people off?" Turcotte asked.

  "They're evacuating by air right now, but it's slow. The fleet won't be offshore for another day."

  MOUNT ARARAT

  Turcotte watched with interest as the wound in Aspasia's Shadow's head slowly healed. The "man's" chest had begun to rise and fall within two minutes of Turcotte's fatal shot. Using climbing rope, Turcotte had securely tied Aspasia's Shadow's hands behind his back and his feet together.

  As fresh skin finally closed the wound, Aspasia's Shadow's eyes flickered open, confusion reigning for a few seconds before he looked at Turcotte.

  "That was foolish."

  "Why?" Turcotte asked.

  "I have much to offer you."

  "We have the mothership, the Master Guardian, and now" — Turcotte held up a cloth-covered object — "the Grail.

  So I didn't have to make a deal after all. What more can you

  offer?"

  "Information."

  "About?"

  "The truth that you are so desperate to discover."

  "I wouldn't believe you even if you did tell me the truth," Turcotte said. He put the Grail down and placed one hand on the pistol grip for his submachine gun. "I tell you what. There is something you can do for me right now to try to prove your sincerity. You started a destruct mechanism on Easter Island, didn't you?"

  Aspasia's Shadow smiled, revealing his sharp teeth. "So you do need me."

  "How long until it detonates?"

  "Soon."

  "Within a day?"

  "Yes."

  "How do we deactivate the device?"

  "Let me free and I will tell you."

  Turcotte shook his head. "You are not in a position to bargain."

  "I am if I have information you want."

  Turcotte lifted the submachine gun. "How many times do you want to die?"

  A flicker of fear crossed Aspasia's Shadow's face. "You would not do that."

  "I want to know how to deactivate the destruct. Tell me."

  "Only for my freedom and the mothership."

  "Come with me," Turcotte said. He loosened the rope tying Aspasia's Shadow's legs. Then he tugged on the rope, and Aspasia's Shadow was forced to follow him as he headed for the Master Guardian room. When they reached the doorway,

  Turcotte looked in. Yakov was communing with the guardian once more.

  "Tell me how to deactivate the destruct," Turcotte said. "Only if you give me the mothership," Aspasia's Shadow said.

  "No deal." Turcotte pulled the trigger, the round hitting the same spot the previous one had.

  EASTER ISLAND

  The plane carrying Kelly Reynolds and other refugees lifted off the runway of the international airport and clawed its way into the sky, grossly overloaded. The C2As could only hold a fraction of the thousands that had been captured and enslaved by the nanovirus. The rest waited around the edges of the runway, eyes peering into the sky, hoping for more planes to rescue them. They knew, in the way a desperate crowd always knows once a rumor begins, that time was ticking away.

  Some more enterprising souls went to the shore and launched outriggers, paddling away. The rest could only stand and wait.

  SPACE COMMAND, COLORADO

  The message was in code with an ST-6 clearance. Captain Manning began decrypting it and began nodding before he got halfway through. He wore a black jumpsuit with his name tag sewn above the left pocket, the Budweiser insignia of the Navy SEALs above the right pocket and a unique patch on the left shoulder. The patch had a dagger up the center with a half-moon on one side and a star on the other — the insignia of the United States Space Forces.

  The unit had already deployed and lost two elements in the war against the aliens — one on board the shuttle Columbia and another with Turcotte on the mission into Egypt to rescue Duncan. Manning had taken the remaining members of his fledgling force and used them to train an influx of new recruits culled from the various Special Operations forces, primarily Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs. He preferred SEALs as they were already used to working in a "weightless" environment with their water training.

  Now he had orders to prepare for a third mission. Manning left the communications center with the message in his hand. They were headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base outside of Colorado Springs. The commo shack was adjacent to a large hangar that had once housed B-52 bombers, but now contained his force's primary training area.

  Manning paused as he entered the hangar, noting the activity. In the center of the hangar was a large water tank, three stories high and a hundred meters in diameter. Several ramps spiraled up the side to a platform level with the top. Suspended from the ceiling, numerous metal tracks crisscrossed the space above the tank.

  Manning heard one of his senior noncommissioned officers standing on the walkway yelling instructions into a radio. Manning walked over to one of the ramps and went up. The tank was full of water and inside a half dozen men in full body suits were being put through the paces by the NCO.

  The men were wearing TASC suits, which stood for Tactical Articulated Space Combat suits. They were self-contained, self-breathing, and with full body armor were designed for combat operations in space. Next to actually going up into space, the tank was the best training preparation the men could get — simulated zero g and a nonbreathable medium.

  The most intriguing thing about the suits was that the outside of the helmets were solid, with no visors. Images were picked up by cameras and relayed to a screen just in front of the wearer's eyes, along with tactical information. Also the arms ended in flat black plates, attached to which were various weapons that could be used in space. On the feet were miniature rockets, used to supplement the propulsion unit on the backpack, which also contained the rebreather and a sophisticated computer.

  A large part of the development of the TASC suit came out of the Air Force's Pilot 2010 Program. Realizing that their jets' capabilities were growing faster than the ability of pilots to man them, the Air Force understood that it needed to approach the entire issue in a different manner. There were fighters on the drawing board that would be able to make a twenty-g turn, but pilots would pass out at half that force. Additionally, at multiple Mach speeds, a pilot's reactions at normal speed weren't quick enough to pilot the plane accurately.


  The TASC suits addressed both those problems by protecting the pilot and by allowing a faster mind-action interface via a device called a SARA — Sensory Amplified Response Activator — link. Inside the helmet was a black band with microscopic probes that went directly into the brain. The link was a two-way feed of electrical current sending input from the suit's sensors to the brain and taking orders directly from the nerve centers. The suit's miniature motors would be acting even as the nerve signal was traveling through the wearer's nervous system to his muscles.

  On the previous two missions, they had not used the SARA link because of fears that the system had been built on alien technology — even Manning didn't know exactly how the skunk works had developed the damn thing. He'd had his men begin training with it again, now that it appeared the aliens had been defeated and the guardian computers were off-line. The suit itself was armored, capable of sustaining a hit from a 7.62mm round.

  "Bring them up, Top," Manning ordered.

  The six men surfaced, their black helmets bobbing in the water. Manning knew they could hear him, as mikes on the outsides of the helmets could amplify sound if needed.

  "Men, we have a mission." He held up the decoded message. "We need to be ready to go in two hours. Area of operations — Mars. It appears the aliens are building some sort of communications facility there. We will destroy that facility. That is all."

  MOUNT ARARAT

  Turcotte grabbed Yakov's shoulder and pulled him away from the Master Guardian. The Russian was confused for a moment as he switched from the virtual world of the guardian to the real world. "What is wrong?"