Einstein Must Die! (Fate of Nations Book 1) (41 page)

As the tank rolled forward, the single chaingun swiveled, keeping a precise bead on his head.

Then it was through the wall and moving into the open space of the airfield runway. The chaingun relaxed and slid out of view. A huge pile of twisted sheet metal, the remains of the hangar wall, lay in the tank’s wake.

The tank rolled forward onto the runway, then turned to the right and accelerated, following the runway.

The private watched it disappear into the night. When the sound of wrenching metal shrieked from the far side of the runway, he knew the thing had run through the base’s security fence.

Whatever it was, it was off the base.

Stunned, he gathered his wits and looked around for the nearest alarm station. He ran to a red box mounted on a nearby wall and threw it open. He picked up the phone handset inside and told a security officer what had happened.

Nearby, Sophia had just undressed and climbed into bed. She flipped on her back, thinking back on the day’s adventures.

Just then alarm klaxons blared across the base, waking the dead. Security details sprang into action, but Sophia knew their adversary was already gone.

As she watched the ceiling fan spin above her, Sophia enjoyed the cool breeze and smiled.

***

After running through Hanscom’s outer security fence, Madelaine carefully made her way through the deserted streets of the surrounding town. While her treads tore up the roads, she tried to get out of town without damaging any homes or buildings.

Tesla and Savannah were strapped tightly into Beowulf’s crash chairs, which absorbed most of the bumps. They held onto the chair arms for stability and rode it out.

Once she cleared the inhabited area of the town, Madelaine found Highway 2 and kept an average speed of thirty-eight miles per hour. The night was cloudy and dark. Whenever Tesla took a look out of a view port, he could see little. Feeling how quickly they were moving through the blackness made him uncomfortable, but he trusted her abilities.

“You can see OK, right?” he asked.

“I can, Nikola. The visible light spectrum isn’t much use currently, so I switched to ultraviolet. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t risk hurting you or Mom.”

“I’m sure,” he said, but he closed the view port nonetheless.

They continued down the road that way for several more minutes before Madelaine startled them.

“We have a problem,” she said.

“What’s happening, honey?” asked Savannah.

“I’ve been monitoring the radio bands, to get any reports on the fight at Boston. Here, just listen.” She turned on the internal speakers and piped the radio into it.

“—repeats. This is Thomas Edison. The research project Beowulf has escaped the Hanscom base and is now considered a rogue agent. This super-tank is extremely dangerous and has killed American personnel. All friendly forces are instructed to consider the tank a British asset and disregard any communications from it as propaganda. Good luck. Message repeats. This is Thomas Edison—”

“Wow,” said Savannah.

“But I can help fight the British!” cried Madelaine.

“We know that, honey,” said Savannah.

Tesla sighed. “But no one who hears that message will believe it now.”

Savannah nodded. “I knew he was power hungry, but this is something else.”

“It’s his dislike for me, I’m afraid,” said Tesla.

“What a shortsighted, arrogant, pigheaded…” Savannah fumed, letting the thought trail off.

“He would sacrifice our help just to prove himself right?” Madelaine asked. “That’s crazy!”

“People often are,” said Tesla. “When emotions run high, reason tends to evaporate.”

“So what do we do?” she asked.

Tesla looked at Savannah. He’d come to know her expressions well. Without speaking, they had agreed.

“We press on,” she said. “We’ll help in the fight, whether we’re wanted or not.”

“OK, Mom,” she said.

To her right, the road had narrowed as they entered more hilly terrain.

Soon the road was running through a large hill that had been blasted away to make room for the highway. Along their right side, a sheer rock wall ran up fifty feet, nearly vertical.

She saw a broad lake approaching on their left. The highway ran between the two obstacles, and she decided to slow down to twenty-six miles per hour.

She wound her way through the carved-out hills, watching her clearance space carefully.

As she came around a curve in the road, she swore, “Oh shit.”

Beowulf lurched forward as Madelaine reduced speed quickly. Soon she came to a full stop in the road.

“Maddy?” asked Savannah. “Why’d you stop?”

“‘Cause we’re about to feel unwanted,” she answered. “There’s an American checkpoint ahead.”

“Perfect,” grumbled Tesla. He snapped open a forward view port, seeing several large campfires burning.

“At least twenty men, blocking the road,” he said. Twisting to one side, he asked, “Is that a lake?”

“Yes,” said Madelaine. “I can either go through the checkpoint, or turn around and head back.”

“I wonder if they heard the broadcast?” asked Savannah.

CLANG
!

A bullet caromed off their front hull and dug into the rock wall beside them.

“I would guess they have,” said Tesla.

“They’re coming,” said Madelaine. Using the natural ultraviolet light from the stars, she saw two dozen men moving toward her, all with rifles.

Another bullet struck the hull, then three more.

“Maddy, get us out of here,” Savannah told her. “We’ll find another way to Boston.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said. Her treads spun in opposite directions, and she spun around, reversing course. Heading back the way they’d come, she powered up and surged forward.

As she came back around the turn, she saw a dozen Americans had blocked her return path.

“Uh—” she said as she hit her brakes again, sending Tesla and Savannah lurching in their seats.

“What now?” he yelled.

“I’m boxed in here, guys. If I can’t run over them, there’s nowhere else to go.”

Tesla got up from his chair and risked a quick look. A dozen men were yelling, and busy with something, but he couldn’t tell—

“Maddy, is that a cannon?” he yelled.

“Two cannons, actually,” she answered. “They’re setting them up on both sides of us.”

A cascade of bullets clanged against the hull again. Tesla slammed the view port shut.

“Maddy, cannons are dangerous, even to you. We need—”

BOOM
!

The cannon directly in front of them fired with a belch of fire, and a forty-pound ball screamed toward them.

BRANG
!

The shot hit Madelaine’s front quarter, sending a jarring thud throughout her.

Tesla felt the impact in his bones, and the horrendous noise from the impact made his ears hurt.

“Uh, Mom?” asked Madelaine, her voice rising in fear. “I don’t know what to do. That hit did something. I can’t tell—something’s not right now.”

Savannah’s eyes searched Tesla’s face, hoping for a brilliant idea, but she saw only what she herself felt: confusion.

“Honey, are your major systems OK?” she asked. “Can you move?”

“Yeah, I can move, see, and fire. Whatever that did, I don’t think it was major. Not yet, anyway.”

Tesla’s fist beat into the bulkhead. “God, they were fast to set this up!”

Savannah shook her head. “No, this is here to stop British movements. We just got caught in the net.”

“I’d rather not be the fish!” he yelled, then stroked his chin in thought.

“Madelaine, you were built to withstand chemical attacks,” he said.

“That’s right,” she said.

“Which means that to some degree, you are waterproof.”

“Oh wow,” whispered Savannah.

“You mean?” Madelaine asked.

“I sure do. Those cannons are going to beat our brains out. Unless someone has a better idea?”

“No,” Savannah said, shaking her head. “Do it, Maddy! Get us out of here!”

“OK,” she said. She threw one tread to half-power and whipped around ninety degrees, facing the lake, then rushed forward into the dark water.

“This is so weird,” she cried as they ran into the lake, sinking below the surface.

Behind them, the astonished Americans held their fire as they watched the giant tank disappear under the lake’s surface.

In seconds it was gone, and the lake’s surface calmed.

***

Madelaine drove forward, along the lake’s bottom. Her vision had been sharply reduced, and she was driving mostly blind.

“Guys, I can’t see a thing. Just so you know,” she announced.

“You’re doing great, baby,” said Savannah. “Just keep a straight course. There aren’t any really deep lakes around here. We’ll find the opposite shore in no time.”

Hopefully
, thought Tesla, eyeing the view ports. Drops of water had appeared around the seals. As he watched, the drops accumulated, running together and dripping onto the floor plating.

“Not good,” he said. He stood and found an old blanket. Twisting it up, he pressed it against a row of view ports, absorbing the incoming water.

“We don’t want water in the electronics,” he said, pointing to the other row of view ports. Savannah nodded and looked around for something to use.

She came back holding the white lab coat they’d used to cover Madelaine’s body.

“Oh no, Savannah,” said Tesla.

“It’s OK. Really,” she said. She smiled sadly, but pressed the coat against the now-wet ports.

Within a minute the coat was saturated and dripping on the floor.

“This isn’t going to work much longer, Nikola,” she said.

Madelaine surged forward on the lake bottom, churning up silt and mud behind her in huge swirling clouds.

Savannah watched helplessly as water poured from the saturated lab coat, pooling on the floor plates. As they bounced along the lake’s bottom, the pool ran one way, then the other, gliding over the steel plating and growing in size.

“Nikola,” she said, now worried about being electrocuted.

He looked back over his shoulder. “Damn,” he muttered.

Beowulf tilted forward suddenly as they ran into a shallow depression. The water surged to the front of the tank and slipped into a control panel. It ran over a mass of wiring and components, causing a short circuit. With an angry sizzling sound, the panel lit up in a blinding flash.

“I can’t tell how deep we are,” Madelaine said, “but we’re tilting up slightly now. It’s getting lighter out there too.”

“Excellent, just press on,” Tesla answered, using both hands to press the blanket. He smelled something burning then and looked back. Wisps of white smoke were rising from the panel. With a sinking feeling, he realized it was the communications station.

He pulled one side of the wet blanket back and watched the bare view port. A few drops appeared, but they didn’t accumulate.

“The pressure is lessening!” he cried.

Savannah tested her side and breathed a sigh of heavy relief.

They dropped the soaked fabrics down onto the access hatch, where the water couldn’t get into anything sensitive.

Tesla grabbed a fire extinguisher while Savannah ran to the smoking panel and pulled it loose.

Golden flames were dancing inside the panel, feeding on the wiring insulation. Tesla could taste the acrid smell of burning plastic in the air.

He sprayed the fire, waving the extinguisher back and forth slowly until the flames had died down. White powder coated the insides of the panel and hung in the air in hazy clouds.

“Amazing,” he said, coughing and smiling at Savannah. “We made it, I think.”

“Yep,” said Madelaine. “Take a look.”

Her front edge was already climbing up the shallow shore of the lake’s edge. She ground on, feeling the treads slipping in the soft sand, and then pulled herself out of the water completely.

Tesla opened the view port and eagerly stared out, while Savannah did the same on her side.

They were exiting the lake on the far shore, opposite where they’d gone in. In the distance Savannah could see the campfires from where they’d escaped the ambush.

Around them she saw only a wide beach sloping into the lake, and beyond that, a thick tree line.

She faced Tesla. “That was a crazy-ass idea.”

He shrugged. “I cannot argue.”

Madelaine drove higher onto the beach, then turned away from the ambush and followed the lake’s edge, looking for a way back to the highway.

“Madelaine, how do your comms feel?” he asked.

“I can hear, but I can’t broadcast,” she answered.

“Could have been worse,” said Savannah.

Tesla nodded. “Yes, easily. With Edison’s message out there, we probably wouldn’t have been believed anyway. We were somewhat lucky, actually,” he said, opening the view ports for fresh air. Slowly, the smoke cleared out.

After an hour of trying back roads, doubling back, trying other roads, and plowing through two fields, they found their way back to Highway 2, several miles south of the ambush spot.

She brought them back up to speed, and they were on their way again.

“I’ve been getting radio signals on military frequencies,” said Madelaine. “It sounds like the fight in Boston is going really bad for us.”

“Bad?” said Savannah. “As in…?”

“The British have taken the port. There’s a lot of confusion flying around, but that much is pretty clear.”

Tesla looked up from checking their ammunition levels. “How much farther to Boston?”

“At this speed we’ll be there in eighteen minutes,” she replied.

“Ammo levels are pretty good,” said Tesla. “We’re lucky we got her out of there before Edison had her stripped down.”

Savannah nodded, her face framed by blonde locks. She was pensive, thinking about the report on Boston. If the port was lost, things were really bad. They were almost certainly running into a desperate situation, one that she knew the general had expected them to fight in. They owed him that, and much more.

She exhaled, letting go of all her negative thoughts.

“Then we put that ammo to good use,” she said. “We retake the port, no matter the cost.”

***