Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel 1: The Deimos Artifact (33 page)

"Arnold?" said Ariane, "Can you set up your drone to give us some eyes outside?"

"Yes, of course," the post-doc replied, "Good idea." Arnold tore himself away from the pyramid and went to retrieve his drone, still parked about half way up the back wall of the cavern where he had left it during his first trip to the cavern.

Ariane found Holger waiting in the short hallway outside the entrance to the mysterious inner chamber.

"Ariane," said Holger, "how bad is it out there?"

"Bad," she replied grimly, "The alien has driven off all three of your raiders and is heading this way."

"My boys couldn't stop him, eh?" replied Holger.

"Not without weapons," she replied, "They hung on as long as they could, though."

"I expected nothing less," said Holger.

"Did Zack and my father go in there?" asked Ariane.

"Yeah," replied Holger, "It's been about ten minutes."

"Any word from them?"

"Nothing," said Holger. He pointed to the green field curtain that covered the opening to the inner chamber, "It doesn't look like our suit radios work through that barrier, whatever it is."

"I'm going in after them."

"Young Zack seems to have a pretty good head on him," said Holger, "Why don't you give them a little more time, it hasn't been that long."

"Alright, I'll give them five more minutes."

Chapter 40.
Chamber of Secrets.

Voltaire Crater, Deimos, July 15, 2676.

Professor MacPherson kept watch as Zack, his pulse rifle held at the ready, took a deep breath and slipped through the greenish curtain across the new doorway. As soon as he entered the chamber beyond, the lighting, a more intense form of the same greenish hue that seemed to be the norm for this place, came up automatically. At the same time, he felt the gravity in the chamber begin to subtly increase. He used one of the handholds to properly orientate himself and waited for perhaps ten seconds until the gravity stabilized at what his battle armor monitors informed him was one standard G.

He found himself in a chamber identical in size to the one that he had just come from only the central floor area of this space was occupied, not by a tetrahedron, but by a triangular block rising out of the floor. Zack couldn't be sure, but upon his initial examination, the construct looked like it might be a control console or possibly even a computer terminal of some kind.

Adhering to another recurring theme of the place, at least in what they had seen so far, the triangular console looked to have exactly the same footprint as the pyramid in the outer chamber. It differed considerably from the pyramid, however, in that the three sides of the triangular solid came straight up out of the floor and remained perpendicular to it for about two thirds of their respective heights.

At about waist height, the angle on each of the sides changed relative to the floor. Each side abruptly bent inwards from perpendicular to something more like thirty degrees, leaving a slanted panel on each side of the triangular block. It was this feature that had triggered Zack's first impression that the construct was a workstation of some kind. The panels were identical, each of them narrower at the top and spanning about a half-meter from bottom edge to top. If the panels had been allowed to extend another meter or so, the construct would have ended in a point, creating a short, squat obelisk of some kind. Instead, the very top of the block had been sliced off, creating a flat triangle that was a smaller version of the one at the base. If this thing were a control panel of some sort, it looked as though it consisted of three stations, one on each side of the triangle.

There was also what looked to be another opening in the wall of the domed space exactly opposite the door Zack had just come through. Like the doorway behind him had been earlier, the new opening was presently blocked by what appeared to be a barrier made of solid rock.

"Professor MacPherson?" he said into his suit microphone, "It seems safe enough. You might as well come in. Be careful, there's gravity in here."

There was no response. Zack turned and looked at his companion who remained outside of the doorway, looking in at him. He pointedly took a few steps across the floor and bounced up and down, bending his knees to demonstrate that a gravity field of some kind was operating. Seconds later the Professor eagerly slipped through the curtain, wisely shoving his legs in first, at floor level, and following with the rest of his body. When he was in the room up to his waist, he sat up and then pulled himself upright using one of the handholds. Long experience dealing with spaceships, airlocks and inconsistent gravity fields had taught the Professor how to manage under such conditions.

"Gravity!" he said, "How convenient."

"Yeah, it came on after I went through the curtain."

"Were you trying to talk to me on your radio?" asked MacPherson.

"Yeah, I guess it wasn't working through that force field."

"Apparently not, I couldn't hear anything."

The Professor, true to his nature, immediately began to look around.

"Don't touch anything, Professor," Zack warned, "At least not right away. We need to figure out what this chamber is about before we try to do anything."

"I concur," replied MacPherson. "Caution is paramount...but this central device certainly looks like a control console of some kind."

"That's what I was thinking," replied Zack, "Check out the back wall. It looks like there might be another doorway."

"Yes, but it also appears to be currently blocked," observed MacPherson, "exactly as the previous one was."

"I wouldn't be surprised if the controls to open it are somewhere on this console," Zack observed.

"Nor would I," replied the Professor. He remained lost in thought for a long moment while gazing at the triangular block, "We were having some difficulty with the translation of the inscriptions on the facets of the pyramid. I wonder if that's because some of them contain instructions on how to activate or operate this console?"

"That makes sense. Maybe that information will help you get to the next level."

"Indeed."

Zack did another visual sweep of the room and noticed that Holger was no longer alone outside the curtain. "Damn!" he exclaimed, "It looks like Holger is waiting at the door with Ariane. I wonder what's going on?" Zack bounced up and down, flexing his knees again, to show Ariane that there was a gravity field and motioned her to come through the doorway. Holger, realizing it was probably important that someone remain outside, remained at his station at the bottom of the short access tunnel. Ariane came through the barrier, her transition into the gravity field made graceful because she had even more experience with varying gravity than her father did.

"Ariane!" said Zack, "Is everything alright?"

"No, it's not," she replied, "The Viking ships were unable to get their weapons back on line. The aliens almost destroyed one of them before all three of them retreated. After that, the aliens performed a couple of bizarre maneuvers with the Soviet ship for some unknown reason and then started heading this way. The
Capri
and the two shuttles are just sitting ducks on the surface, so we all abandoned ship."

"Everyone?" asked Zack.

"Yes, everyone, including Cliff, but I had to threaten him."

"Weapons, food?"

"We brought everything we could carry. Gertrude and Sergei are trying to set up some defenses. If anything tries to come through that door, it will run into some pretty heavy fire."

"Sounds like you're fairly well on top of things," said Zack.

"We've done what we could," replied Ariane, "For what it's worth, Gertrude says that more Viking ships are on the way. It'll be several hours before they can get here though."

"So we may only need to hold out here for a few hours?" asked Zack. "I guess I'd better go out and help with the defense. It doesn't look like we're going to be able to do much of anything down here until the scientists can get more information. I'll send the rest of them down here to help you, Professor. For God's sake, don't let anyone touch anything yet!"

Chapter 41.
Critical Matters.

Murmansk, on approach to Deimos, July 15, 2676.

Seeing that the status of the power plant on his captured ship was approaching overload levels, the Ambassador called engineering to order the shutdown of the weapons neutralizing system. Ideally, he would like to have let it run a bit longer, but it looked as though he had gained adequate time to do what he needed to do. The device had served its purpose. The enemy ships had been neutralized long enough for him to drive them off. To his annoyance, he got no response.

He checked his readouts again.

For some reason, the readings on the power plant's output were spiraling upwards way more quickly than expected even with the added strain of powering the damping device. In fact, the readings had spiked up considerably in the last few minutes and were now approaching alarmingly high levels! Muttering his species' equivalent of a curse regarding the inconveniences associated with primitive technology, the creature rapidly entered a string of commands into the auxiliary engineering console and hit the return.

Nothing happened.

The movements of the three aliens on the bridge of the
Murmansk
became more and more frantic as each of them came to the belated realization that something was seriously wrong with the power plant of their captured ship and it seemed as though there was nothing they could do about it!

The aliens finally concluded that their control of the ship's engineering functions had been wrested from them somehow. This conclusion was reinforced by the fact that their compatriot who had been assigned to engineering had not responded to multiple calls. The Ambassador finally came to the conclusion that one of them needed to get back down to engineering to correct the situation. He decided to go himself.

Down in the engineering section of the Soviet ship, Rudolph Lysenko laid down on his cot, closed his eyes and waited, surprisingly calmly, for what he knew must come next. From everything he knew, there wasn't going to be enough time for his brain to register any pain before he and the entire ship, would go up in a blaze of nuclear glory and all would be nothing but atoms. He heard some frantic scraping and a couple of loud bangs on the hatchway he had welded shut before there was a searing, white light...

Voltaire Crater, Deimos July 14, 2676
.

Zack returned to the outer cavern and sent Kathryn and Olga down to confer with MacPherson in the newly accessible adjacent cavern. Arnold he kept with him. Ariane had given Zack a heads up regarding her idea to put the Professor's post doc and his drone to use. Arnold had activated the drone already and Zack found him maneuvering the little device down through the short tunnel and back outside to the floor of the crater where the refugees could use its output to observe the surface of the moon without being exposed themselves.

Arnold manipulated the controls to center the little drone's view on the three grounded ships and then began a sweep to the left. The view on the little monitor in the drone's control console began returning a view of the barren, grey surface of the crater floor. There were still a few wispy clouds of dust, kicked up by the exodus of personnel from the three ships, slowly settling in the all but nonexistent gravity. Beyond the crater floor was a stark and rugged horizon demarcated by the jagged features of the crater rim. Above the rim was a pitch black sky densely encrusted with millions of bright, tiny stars. As the drone reached the end of its leftward sweep, the view became filled with nothing but rock. Arnold then began a sweep to the right.

Just as the three ships on the crater floor were coming into full view on the drone's monitor again, the entire area was lit up with an incredibly brilliant flash of white light. The light flickered a couple of times, and momentarily flashed even brighter before the output from the drone ceased. The intensity of the light had overloaded the little device's sensors.

The light could also be seen by everyone within the outer cavern, as it lit up the entryway.

"What do you suppose that was?" asked Zack, of no one in particular.

"An explosion?" ventured Gertrude.

"My drone stopped responding," said Arnold.

"I'm in armor," said Zack, "I'll go and take a look. The rest of you stay here."

Holding his pulse rifle at the ready, for all the good it would do if the Soviet ship decided to strafe the area with its pulse weapons, Zack made his way back down the short tunnel to the outside. To his immense relief, the
Capri
and both of the shuttles appeared to be intact, just the way they had been when they were abandoned. He could see no evidence of any other craft on the surface and a quick scan of the sky didn't reveal any ships within visual distance. He knew that didn’t mean much with the Soviet ship's weapons having a range of well over two thousand kilometers, but the apparently serene nature of the scene in the crater was at least some comfort.

He picked up a message on his suit radio.
"This is
Warbird One
calling Viking shuttle or
Capri
. Do you read me?"
The operator on the Warbird began to repeat the message. Zack keyed up the powerful suit radio that his battle armor was equipped with.

"Zack Lynton of the
Capri
here," he replied, "What is your status,
Warbird One
?"

"We're fine up here, for the most part.
Warbird Two
took some damage from the Soviet craft and has sustained a few injuries, but no one was killed. How about you folks down there on the moon?"

"We were afraid they were going to attack us on the surface so we evacuated everyone from the
Capri
and both shuttles. We're holed up in the cavern we found. Everyone is safe inside the crater rim. No injuries. What happened out here anyway? All we saw was a bright flash of light."

"That Soviet ship went nova just a few minutes ago."

"Went nova?"

"Yeah, it just blew up. I've never seen anything so bright and we were a good three thousand klicks away! Nothing but a debris field left where it used to be. From the readings we got, we're thinkin' that the Soviet engineer trapped onboard with those...aliens must have set the fusion plant to go Chernobyl. Too bad he won't be around for us to thank him."

"So the threat from the Soviet ship is gone?"

"Sure looks like it. Might be a good idea to keep your people inside the crater rim for a while yet, though. Your moon could be getting hit by some of the debris from the explosion within the next few minutes."

"I'll tell the others. I assume you want to talk to Holger right away. I'll send him out."

"Thanks, Zack."

Zack went back into the cavern and shared the news with everyone. The Soviets, now a very long way from home without a ship, also had to deal with the grim realization that nine of their complement had perished along with their ship. They were understandably somewhat less enthusiastic than the others in celebrating the victory over the aliens but seemed relieved to have survived the affair nonetheless.

Zack asked Holger to join him and the two of them stayed just outside the opening in the crater wall while Holger conferred with his ships and Zack kept an eye out for evidence of falling debris. He was not to be disappointed. Over the next five minutes, a number of minute fragments and several larger ones from the still expanding cloud of debris that had been the Soviet ship impacted the crater floor, stirring up noticeable puffs of dust wherever there was a hit. Fortunately, none of them hit anywhere near any of the grounded ships or anywhere near him and Holger. Zack waited for a good ten minutes after the last of the impacts and, seeing nothing more, concluded that the debris storm was over.

Cliff was among the first to leave the cavern, desperate to make sure that his precious
Capri
was okay. The rest of the temporary refugees gathered up their things and headed back to the
Capri
or to one of their respective shuttles.

Everyone except the four academics, that is. Zack had interrupted a friendly but heated discussion when he had gone into the second cavern to give them the news about the Soviet ship. He told the scientists what had happened.

"So someone just blew up the Soviet ship?" asked MacPherson.

"The Vikings think that someone on board set the power plant to overload."

"Well thank God for that!" said the Professor, "Now maybe we can get some work done here!"

Olga, with stoic Soviet reserve, said nothing, but through the faceplate of her helmet, her expression was one of profound sadness.

Now that they could actually see and physically touch the various treasures in the two caverns, the scientists were understandably reluctant to go back to the ship only to work with nothing but stale images. Zack found that he sympathized with them.

"I know you haven't been at this very long," said Zack, "but have you made any progress at all?"

"Possibly," replied the Professor, "With the hypothesis that this triangular construct is a control unit of some kind, we have been scrutinizing the inscriptions on the pyramid."

"And?"

"Olga and Kathryn think that one entire facet of the pyramid contains the instructions for how to activate and use this 'control' or 'teaching console,' we can't decide which it is."

"What makes you think that?" asked Zack.

"You need to see this," said MacPherson, motioning to Zack to follow him. The Professor led Zack over to the central, triangular block and waved his hand over the slanted trapezoidal panel at the top of the side nearest to them. In a reaction very similar to the one they had observed with the artifact earlier, the faint outlines of what looked like it could have been a viewpanel appeared, lit up with the same green glow as the lettering on the artifact. Below it was another panel, the same width but considerably shorter in height, about the size of a computer keyboard. As they watched, the lines faded back into the original featureless stone, or whatever it was made of.

"I thought I told you not to touch anything," said Zack.

"I know," replied the Professor, "Technically we haven't, ah... actually touched anything. Olga was examining one of the panels. She brought her tablet up close to capture an image of it and we noticed this...this phenomenon."

"Leave it to you academics to find any loophole," said Zack.

By way of an apology, the Professor managed an exaggerated shrug in his spacesuit, "I have a request..."

"I know," said Zack, "you need more time with this stuff."

"Exactly," replied MacPherson.

"This is what we came here for," replied Zack, "I have no objection with you staying here as long as you can, but you're going to run out of air pretty soon and you'll want to get out of those spacesuits before too much longer."

"That is an unfortunate necessity," MacPherson grudgingly admitted.

"It's getting late and this has been a horrendous day," said Zack, "Why don't we all go back to the ship for now? Everybody can have a decent meal and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow you scientists can set up an arrangement where you can work in shifts or something. Some of you are going to need to remain on the
Capri
. I guarantee you that even with gravity in here, you're going to be a lot more comfortable back in the boardroom. Maybe we can work out some kind of a communications link where the people out here can be in contact with those who are working onboard the ship."

"That may be for the best," admitted the Professor.

The rest of the academic contingent agreed with the logic and, within a few minutes, Zack was herding the lot of them back towards the
Capri
as they all, once again, used his picket line to safely guide them.