Dark Dragons (69 page)

Tony shouted in anger, in terror, and shoved the fighter
upward toward the ceiling, trying to throw the goddamn thing off so he could
take a shot.  Its force field may have been too strong for small arms fire
to punch through but certainly not against a pair of five hundred megawatt
laser cannons.  He bashed the Guardian into the ceiling, but the alien
still refused to let go.

The creature’s robotic eyes began to glow yellow. 
Wavering arcs of blue-white electricity erupted underneath its cobra-like
hood.  Tony didn’t know what this bright shit was all about until he
realized it might have activated some kind of weapon.  He banked the
Dragonstar hard to starboard, hoping he reached the opposite wall in time to
smash the beast again before it could use its weapon.

Suddenly, an incredible flash of intense light erupted
outside the cockpit, and not just a flare but a stadium full of klieg lamps
erupting in his eyes at once. Momentarily blinded and confused, guessing he was
about to die somehow, Tony could only stop his fighter’s forward momentum, and
reared up.  Overload alarms flashed on his visor.  The Guardian had
tried to fry his Dragonstar’s circuits like some crazy, electric eel.  The
fighter’s internal dampers absorbed the shock but would not be able to take
much more.

Growling in anger, Tony spun his dragon around and vaulted
toward the hole in the tunnel.  He dashed the Guardian against the edge of
the rupture, and this time it lost its grip on the Dragonstar’s nose and slid
across the top of the fuselage as Tony raked it against the edge.  Sensing
the alien’s weight missing from his fighter, he spun his machine around and
found the Guardian silently turning toward him, propelled by a large hover pack
of its own.

Tony backed off to give himself some distance and fired a
fifty-round, twenty thousand fps burst from the gauss cannon.  The
full-speed blast shredded the monster into a thousand flying clumps of flesh
and yellow blood quickly freezing in the cold of space.

Tony let out a sharp huff of air. 
For Carruthers.

*

As huge as the SB-138A Andromeda was, the inside hold was
not as spacious as Darren would have believed.  Generators, engines and
life support machinery took up about seventy percent of the total area, leaving
the rest for personnel and cargo.  The cockpit oddly enough was
constructed at the top of the ship with tiny windows for the pilots.  Five
rows of acceleration recliners ringed the cockpit tower, able to seat an entire
battalion of infantry.  Rolling deck plates on floor rails were used to secure
palletized cargo or vehicles as large as five-ton supply trucks.  These
took up the spaces between the transport’s three loading ramps.  The
SB-138A was an impressive pinnacle of human engineering——R&D’ed from Vorvon
tech of course.

Jorge hovered back to his seat, holding onto the handles of
a retractable ceiling pulley which deposited him in the recliner with the
control of a thumb stick.

“I dig the toilets, man,” he chuckled.  “Like pissing
in a shop vac.”

“Same ones NASA used on the Space Shuttle,” Middleton said,
firing up a stubby cigar. “Try taking a dump.  The first time is always a
little awkward, shall we say.”

The Andromeda’s pilot came over the comm.  “We’re on
final approach.  Altitude seven-four-zero miles.”

“How you doing Nate?” Darren asked his friend.

Nate slowly shook his head, his eyes no bigger than
slits.  “These drugs are wearing off, man.  Fuckin’ pain is
everywhere . . . I gotta broken rib sticking in my right lung . . . and I know
the bones in my arm are jacked.  I can hardly see out of my left eye . . .
other than that, I’m ready for some backyard football.”

“We got the best trauma doctors in the military,” Middleton
said. “As soon as we touch down at the Nest, they’ll have you back in killer
mode in no time.”  The captain shook his head.  “I’m jealous of your
suits.  Whatever the hell that armor is made of, it sure as shit saved
your arse from that gautdamn beasty.”  Middleton took a long drag off his
stogie and looked away.  “Too bad Carruthers. . . .”

The other SAWDOG’s strapped into their recliners nearby said
nothing.  Silence for the dead.  Congressional Medals of Honor had
better be in order, Darren thought.

He glanced at his counter.  00:00:12.  “It’s
almost time.”

Everyone looked up at the high-definition TV screens angled
above them.  An external camera had a lock on the Vorvon moonship almost
300,000 miles away.  Darren, Nate and Jorge had seven proton destroyers
remaining between them if the warp procedure failed to work.  Tony had
none.  Darren could summon his Dragonstar and be out of the airlock in
less than two minutes.  He tightened the grip on the recliner’s
armrests. 
Burn, you bastard.

*

Deep within the moonship, the Invicid screamed in fury with
an intense barrage of sonar that reverberated across the walls of its life
chamber.  The mighty creature bashed its tentacles against the walls and
the floor, killing scores of shadow spawn and smashing the altar tower which
had served it for millenia.  The shadow spawn still alive beneath it
cursed blasphemies against their creator.  Millions of Vorvons raged in
unison.

A lone voice: 
Let me go.  Let me be the seed
in this universe for your return.

Your piety is blessed .
. . I shall ignite your ascension.

*

A black, metaspace portal opened in front of the moonship
and sucked the behemoth into its quantum depths.  One thousandth of a
second later, it reappeared and struck the sun’s wispy, fiery corona.  The
vessel was already vaporized down to the atoms before it could plunge into the
star’s churning surface below.

*

No one cheered, everyone too exhausted to do so.  Only
quiet lamentation and reflection occupied their minds.  Not rousing fist
pumps and conga lines.  The thrum of the transport’s magnetic field
disrupter and tons of spinning mercury was the only sound heard.

Darren closed his eyes.  Vanessa sitting next to him
reached out and held his hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Saturday, May 22

The SPAS12 shotgun was slick with Towsley’s sweat.  He rubbed
his hands on his uniform, but it too was damp with perspiration and did little
to dry his palms.  Geils walked just behind him.  The 9mm Beretta
looked clumsy in the kid’s hands as much as it must have felt clumsy.  It
gave Geils a bit more confidence and helped alleviate his noisy flights of
terror, but the kid didn’t know that there was only one round in the gun. 
Towsley wasn’t dumb.

He peered around the corner into the vestibule and the
swinging doors leading to the hangar and sweet freedom beyond.  Caliban
could have gone there to seek out a place of ambush——there were plenty of
niches and corners in the hangar in which to launch a surprise attack——or the
alien could have entered the stairwell and returned to the dark confines of the
base.  He swore at himself once again for failing to remember to bring his
radio.  A couple of squads of Forrester’s men would be nice backup right
about now, but Towsley wondered if any of them would risk reentering the base,
even on orders, with Caliban threatening to nerve gas everyone.

He gave the swinging door into the hangar a soft kick. 
Nothing reacted to the movement, and he stepped out, motioning Geils to stay
back.  Towsley put his back against the skeleton of an overturned 5-ton
truck and peeked around the smoking cab.

Caliban was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the
hangar, his back to the colonel and facing the tunnel entrance.  The alien
had his open hands on his knees.  He looked like a Hindu guru in deep
meditation.  Towsley could not see the nerve gas canister, if Caliban had
it at all.  It might be hidden between the alien’s legs, he thought.

Towsley moved forward, his shotgun level and steady, until
he came into Caliban’s peripheral vision.

I am tired.
  Caliban clucked his teeth. 
Very
tired.

Towsley was not about to drop his guard.  Billings had
dropped his and received a disembowelment as a result.  He glanced back at
the vestibule door.  Geils was peeking out through the glass, his eyes in
continuous blinking mode.  “So what are your intentions?”

I will allow the child to leave.  You will stay with
me for now.
 Caliban reached down between his legs and revealed the VT
canister still taped to the end of a cocked 9mm Beretta.  He rested his
makeshift nerve gas bomb on his legs.

Towsley’s heart beat faster, and he felt the blood rush out
of his face.  “Geils!  Come on out!”

A moment later, he heard footsteps behind him.

“Run up the tunnel . . . now.”

“What about you?” Geils asked.

“Don’t worry about me.  You just got a free pass. 
Now go!”

The kid’s footsteps exploded behind him, and he watched
Caliban’s head turn as the alien watched Geils run to everlasting
freedom.  Towsley never hated Geils Woodbury more.

Your weapon will not save you.  You know my
redundant nervous system will still allow my dead body to pull this
trigger.  Now sit down in front of me.
  To emphasize his demand,
the alien raised his weapon slightly. 
How you respond in the coming
moments will determine both our fates.

The colonel gave Caliban a wide birth and sat down
cross-legged about fifteen feet away.  “Alright.  Now what?”

A smart phone appeared from the hidden space between
Caliban’s legs and slid across the concrete.  It struck Towsley’s boot.

Call your daughter.  Sarah will want to hear from
her long lost father.

Something twisted like a hot blade.  The panic clawing
inside him spiked, his mind racing, his limbs going numb.

No, I cannot read human thoughts, though my heart would
desire so.  I can only project my voice into your undeveloped brain.
 
Caliban tilted his head to the side as if Towsley represented a mystifying
piece of art deserving deeper scrutiny. 
I’m afraid too many careless
conversations with Dr. Billings in the observation room over the years have
revealed old wounds.

“When I contact my daughter, it will be on my terms. 
Not yours.”

The alien tightened his grip on the Beretta, Towsley hearing
the knuckles crack from this distance. 
You are in no situation to
declare terms . . . call your progeny . . . now.

He picked up the smart phone and recognized it as belonging
to Dr. Billings.  Caliban must have rummaged through the doctor’s quarters
sometime earlier.  Towsley used his thumb to call his daughter, a number
never dialed but known by heart.  His mind continued to scramble for
answers as he tried to understand Caliban’s intentions.

As it began to ring, the terror of an unforgiving daughter’s
rejection began to supersede the threat of suffering an agonizing death.

“Hello?”

Towsley forced his lips to move.  “Is this Sarah
Kline?”

“It is.”

“Sarah . . . this is your dad.”

The Awkward Pause came, and it was long and painful, heavy
with twenty some unspoken years.  Towsley worked spit into his mouth.

“My dad?”

“Yes.  Do you have time to talk right now?”

“Not really . . . how did you get my number?”

“Your mother gave it to me a few years ago.”

He heard a sharp huff of air.  “And you’re just now
calling me?”

“I know.  It was hard for me to work up the
nerve.  Every time I picked up the phone I just put it back down.”

“So what convinced you now?  Because it’s the end of
the world and you wanted to make your peace?”

Towsley watched Caliban stroke his abdomen where the fetus
lay peaceful, the alien’s eyes locked squarely on his own.  He felt tears
forming.  “Something like that.  I just want you to know that I am so
very sorry for what I did to you and your mother.  I hate myself for it.”

“Good.  You never told me that twenty years ago. 
You didn’t tell me anything when mom pulled the car away, so I spent the rest
of the years thinking you felt nothing.  Mom was right when she denied
weekend visitations, but you didn’t even fight for them.  Why?”

Towsley heard a small child in the background giggle and a
dog bark, and his heart ached a little harder.

“I guess I couldn’t stand to be reminded what I did every
time I looked at you.”

“That’s a weak ass excuse.”

Towsley closed his eyes, knowing his whole life was full of
weak ass excuses.  “Sarah, I said I was sorry.”

“You didn’t see my mother in a bathtub full of blood. 
You didn’t wrap your t-shirt around her wrist to keep her alive.  I don’t
think you really saw what you did other than what the lawyers filtered to
you.”  Sarah did not shout——it gave her words more weight.  Her
hushed matter-of-fact tone cut deeper.  “I hated you for so long. 
But that hate dried up years ago.  I can’t hate someone I don’t know.”

That was the blade tip that finally found the center of
Towsley’s resolve.  He had been gritting his teeth, trying to keep from
sobbing over the phone and not sound spurious.  But his quivering bottom
lip would no longer allow his words to come out easy.  “I want you to know
me again, Sarah . . . I . . .”  Now he was heaving, twenty years of
rehearsed “I’m Sorry’s” jamming up in his brain.

“How could you possibly want to call me now?” she shrieked,
her composure finally gone.  “At a time like this!”  His daughter
began to weep, her breath jagged.  “You always had the worst timing. 
Will forgiveness really erase twenty years of your pain?”

“I just wanted . . . to . . . to say something to my . . .
can I talk to my grandson?”