Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (38 page)

He kept a constant eye on the second hand of his watch. A
minute dragged by. Then two. Then three. And still, nothing seemed to happen.

Paul began to breathe easier. The blast must have occurred
after all. In a few more minutes, the turbulence would dissipate enough for him
to emerge.

Of course, there was the little problem of where to go next.
There was no other land masses in range, not in his current condition, not
until he had more rest. He would hold out as long as he could before he dropped
into the ocean. What was that old line in the Bill Cosby skit about Noah? “How
long can you tread water?”

Paul was afraid that he was going to get the chance to find
out the answer for himself.

Internally, he was starting to feel very miserable. If the
explosion had indeed happened, then, for the first time in his life, he had
deliberately killed someone. And not just one person, but at least twenty of
them. Despair began to fill his soul.

• • • •

“Fair dinkum?” McNamee asked incredulously of the Oni
standing in front of him. “How many cactus?” he asked of the Oni giving him the
report. “That many dead? McDougall too! Ripper! So that energy spike I felt was
McDougall’s and several Oni talismans getting wacked? Crikey! Okay! I want everyone,
ya hear, Miro! Everyone goes! Bail up that rogie, we will. Herd ‘em up, leave
in five.”

McNamee set the glass he was drinking from back on the bar
and closed his eyes briefly in pain. A half dozen of his Oni, gone. Just like
that. That McDougall creep was a dill. Well, as the Yanks loved to say, if you
wanted something done right, best do it yourself.

He would need his war talisman for this, the strongest one
he owned. There was just time to get it before they left for Kalgoorlie.

“Dead as a maggot, he’ll be,” McNamee solemnly swore.

• • • •

Capie and Daneel shot through the portal, shocked at finding
themselves above a fury filled, wave-tossed ocean.

“Wow! What happened here?” asked a very worried Capie.

“‘Entering limits of System L-374, sir. Scanners show the
same evidence of destruction,’” Daneel said, quoting Sulu from the
Star Trek
episode “The Doomsday Machine.” “Latitude and longitude matches. This
used
to be Middleton Reef. Poof, now it’s gone!”

 “What’s that over there?” Capie paused in midflight, pointing
at an object very high above them and several hundred yards away.

And then Capie did recognize it.

“Paul!” she shouted as she tore through the air in his
direction. “He’s falling!”

She had barely gotten the words out when Daneel shot past
her at incredible speed, reaching out with a spell to catch his father and slow
his fall, bringing him to a halt just before impact with the raging waves on
the ocean’s surface.

Capie reached her husband’s side a second later. “He’s
bleeding!” she yelled.

Paul stirred, turning in Daneel’s spell and smiling weakly
at Capie.

“You’re bleeding!” she shouted at him above the roar of the
wind. “What happened?”

“McDougall,” he said, between coughs. “Must get ship ready.
Now!”

“But you’re hurt!” she protested.

“What do you want us to do, Dad?” Daneel asked gravely.

“Staging…quick!…Load water…into fuel tanks… thousand
gallons…hurry!”

“We’re going to Mars now?” asked a distraught Capie as she wiped
his face with a wet washrag she had just fished through a portal.

“No, Earth orbit,” Paul answered and then coughed. “Capie,
throw—ow! Hurt!”

“Sorry,” she apologized as she pulled back from her
examination of the wound in his side. “I need to stop that bleeding. Daneel,
use a spell, tear his shirt off, carefully! Good! Thanks.” She pulled a
compress through a portal from a supply cabinet in the tiny 4 bed facility of
Gower Wilson Memorial Hospital on Lord Howe Island, ripping open the package
and putting it gently on the uncovered wound, applying a steady pressure. “Now
open us up a portal, back the way we came starting with Brisbane! Hold on,
Paul, we’re moving!”

• • • •

In four portal jumps, they were back at the Staging Area.
Capie had argued to go to a medical facility in Perth, but Paul had insisted
otherwise.

When they reached the Staging Area, Daneel laid Paul on an
emergency cot, where Capie could attend him.

“Go on, Paul,” Capie told him with a frown. “What happened?”

Through gritted teeth and a wave of pain, her husband
muttered, “McDougall escaped…attacked me…got to leave here… now …Throw the critical…(cough)…parts,
supplies from storeroom…on board. We’ll…organize it later. Not critical…leave
it. Replace later…from orbit.”

“I’ll take care of the water,” Daneel promised, opening a
portal and disappearing.

“We need to get you—” Capie started to say.

“Cockpit! Please! I’ll…keep pressure on compress. Go! Hurry!
No time!”

• • • •

Daneel was feeling emotions he had never before experienced.
All at the same time too. He was afraid, panicked, angry, stressed, determined,
and impatient. He and his family were in danger.
Errabêlu
was coming and
they needed to leave Australia! Right NOW!

He opened an eight inch portal from the bottom of Bullock
Hole into the top of the
Sirius Effort
’s fuel tank. According to an
internet web page he had just accessed, that gave him 950 gallons per minute
flow rate. He didn’t even try to filter the dirt out of the water; he was in too
much of a hurry.

• • • •

Paul finished carefully stretching himself out on the
pilot’s crash couch, smiling weakly at Capie as she turned and left the cockpit
through her portal.

Slowly returning his gaze forward, he closed his eyes in concentration,
creating another spell.

The
Sirius Effort
didn’t have a single electrical
system on board. No control systems, no avionics, no cameras, in fact no
electronics of any sort, and no instrumentation. There weren’t even any lights
on board.

It was an odd thing for an electrical engineer to design, a
ship that didn’t use a single wire anywhere. Instead, in order to save on
construction time, he had simplified the design/build of the craft. And in
truth, he had shaved two weeks or so off the schedule! His assumption had been
that all such functions could and would be met with magical spells.

Mostly, the only things in the cockpit were two crash
couches and a small table with a strap, for Daneel. The bulkheads were blank,
except for the visible members of the structural frame.

As he waved a hand, a viewscreen showing an outside view,
and a virtual control panel appeared, laid out in front of him. The effort was
taxing and his vision swam for a few moment before steadying back out. He
watched one indicator on the panel as the fluid level in the fuel tank rose
slowly off the zero mark. Good! Daneel was already nearly finished with that
vitally important task.

A thousand gallons wasn’t nearly enough for them to go to
Mars with, but more than enough to achieve Earth orbit and land again, if
needed. Besides, he had only managed to load about a third of the lithium
chlorate. More water wouldn’t help him since the lithium was the main fuel.

The water would need a couple of minutes to absorb the
lithium salt. Then the fuel solution would be ready to go.

A portal opened to his right with Daneel visible on the
other side.

“Water’s loaded,” Daneel informed him. “Do you want me to
help Mom now?”

“Yes,” Paul said with a groan of pain. “If the bad guys show
up, we need to leave immediately. Understand? No matter what’s left behind.
Tell Mom!”

“No strain, Pop,” was the hurried reply and then Daneel was
gone, his portal too.

Paul closed his eyes, concentrating on the dopamine spell
and adrenaline spells again, trying to regain a little more strength and mental
acuity.

• • • •

It was simply amazing how much one could accomplish in a
short period of time when one was motivated enough. And also too, when enough
shortcuts were taken.

Capie and Daneel didn’t bother to pack anything or to store
it properly in the cargo holds on Decks 6 and 7. They instead just dumped it
wherever they found space. Box by box, item by item, with Capie making judgment
calls on everything that went aboard, they loaded more than two thousand pounds
of cargo in just five minutes.

“Cargo loaded!” Capie announced, sticking her head through a
portal into the cockpit.

Paul smiled back at her, feeling a trifle better and a touch
stronger.

“You and Daneel, please stand watch while I launch the ship,
in case the bad guys show up. But I want you back aboard before we reach 10,000
feet, okay?”

She smiled at him, moving her portal closer so that she
could give him a quick kiss.

“Get this garbage scow off the ground, sweetheart,” she
said, with an impish grin before backing out of the portal and disappearing.

“I’ve already starting chilling the nozzles and bringing up
the magnetic fields. Initiating countdown and launch sequence now,” he said,
suppressing another wave of dizziness. “Opening engine inlet portals now.” A
glance at the viewscreen confirmed the appearance of the inlet portals just in
front of both engines. “Now pressurizing fuel lines!”

A virtual throttle lever appeared on the panel in front of
him and he painfully stretched forth a hand to grasp it.

“Starting port engine fusion now!”

• • • •

Outside the ship, Capie and Daneel watched as a burst of
flame emerged from the tail end of the port engine, followed a few seconds
later by a similar event from the starboard engine.

“Mom!” Daneel hissed, his image on his monitor pointing back
over her shoulder.

She spun. At ground level, not far from one of the camo
support poles, an Oni was emerging from a portal. It was followed a few moments
later by two more.

The engine plumes suddenly grew bigger, the thunder of their
noise reaching deafening proportions.

• • • •

“Liftoff!” cried Paul, as the
Sirius Effort
inched
off of the ground, struggling into the air.

‘Staging Area’

Open Pit Goldfields Mine

Southwest of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

October

Saturday 2:02 p.m. AWST

T
hrusting
its way up out of the open mining pit, with the camo nets and poles now draped
across the nose of the ship, the
Sirius Effort
began its climb into the
sky, heading toward Earth orbit. At least a dozen Oni had arrived on the ground
now around the pit and staring up, watching the incredible sight as the strange
craft standing on a pillar of fire pushed its way skyward.

McNamee appeared with another dozen Oni. He too stood there,
shocked and dumbfounded as he witnessed the launch of the odd looking craft.

But then he noticed the two figures flying as escort and he
recovered his senses.

“Get ‘em boys!” he screamed, as he catapulted off the ground.

• • • •

Daneel and Capie were flying alongside the hull of the ship,
watching as the Oni lifted off the ground in pursuit behind them.

“You take the port side, Mom!” shouted Daneel. “I’ll take
starboard!”

The spacecraft was already 350 feet off the ground and just
beginning its gravity assisted turn. The Oni split into two groups, a dozen
headed for Capie and the rest headed for Daneel. Both groups were forced to
steer wide of the ship’s plumes.

It wouldn’t take them long to reach optimum firing range.

• • • •

Paul was monitoring events in the cockpit viewscreen. There
wasn’t much he could do to help.

“I should have never taken those shortcuts in this ship’s
design! Next ship gets phaser banks and quantum torpedoes!” he muttered angrily,
his nostrils flaring.

Well, there was one thing he could do.

“Red-lining the engines!” he shouted above the noise. “Give
me all you got, baby!” And he shoved his imaginary throttle to the forward
stop.

The engine plumes increased fifty percent in size, the
Sirius
Effort
now leaping forward at 1.8 gees of acceleration. The engines were
not designed for that level of operation, the stress and temperature loads
rapidly peaking higher.

They wouldn’t last long at this rate.

• • • •

Two of the Oni were too close to the expanding engine plumes
and got caught unawares. They were forced to back off and beat at their clothes
to put out the smoking flames.

“Open fire!” screamed McNamee.

The leading wave of Oni did just that.

• • • •

The first plasma bolts raced at Capie and the spacecraft,
and she quickly put up a shield warding them off. Gathering herself, she flung
an arm forward, firing off a half dozen bolts of her own.

The aerial Battle of Kalgoorlie had begun.

A second later, Daneel too was under fire, the Oni plasma
bolts bracketing him as he flew, dodging back and forth while at the same time,
trying to protect the ship.

• • • •

In the city of Kalgoorlie, the Lorna Mitchell Spring
Festival was in full swing at Hammond Park, with a record turnout this year.

Established by the Goldfields
Art Board in 1985, the Spring Festival was an annual community driven event. Stall
holders came from all over the state to participate in the Festival, in
conjunction with varying acts of entertainment throughout the day. Attendance
in recent years had peaked at over 5,000 patrons and it was not uncommon for
people to spend the entire day at Hammond Park.

Crowds of people, mostly
families, were strolling through the park or watching the annual game of
Australian Rules football. Many other attendees were sauntering past the
various stalls, examining the products or demonstrations being offered. The
in-crowd among the youth was also present in record numbers, clustered in
groups listening to music or simply socializing. One of the more popular
entertainments being offered this year was a standup comedian from Perth who
was attracting a healthy percentage of the crowd.

The weather was picture
perfect, not a cloud in the sky and a slight breeze blowing from the south.
Claire
Worthington, one of the planners for the event this year, was absolutely tickled
with the results. Moreover, the city’s elite had turned out in force, including
the Mayor, the Chief Inspector and the CEO and their families.

Hammond Park, one of the most
beautiful parks in Western Australia, was located in the northwest corner of
the city, making it practically dead center of the
Sirius Effort’s
flight path.

• • • •

“Avro, Inspector,” said Lachlan Harris, the city’s CEO, as
he walked up to Inspector Oliver McQuade, the supervising officer of the
Kalgoorlie District Police station. “How’s the mob at home?”

“They’re beaut, mate. Thanks,” McQuade replied. “Yours?”

“Aces,” Harris responded, glancing around the park. “Rip
snorter of a day. According to Worthington, the only thing lacking is the
Neumanns.”

McQuade snorted and shook his head. “Pikers, they be. No
sign of them for a week now. Got a team doing an inspection of the warehouse
they’re renting. They might find something.”

But Harris was no longer paying attention. Like a growing
number of people in the park, he was now staring to the west, over the tops of
the trees, as a very strange spectacle appeared.

A spaceship was climbing into view, launching on a column of
fire, its path apparently curving to the east. As he watched, it lifted higher
in the air. What was even stranger was that there was a battle going on around
it. A swarm of tiny dots were darting back and forth, this way and that,
looking all the world like they were shooting balls of fire at each other. And
perhaps they were. As he watched, one of them fell out of the sky, streaking
toward the Earth, apparently shot out of the air.

The battle raged on as the pageant unfolded in the skies
above them, moving higher in the sky as it also moved in their direction.

“Blimey!” muttered McQuade as studied the scene. “Claire can
be happy now. The Neumanns just put in an appearance.”

Harris, craning his neck, one hand shading his eyes,
chortled. “They be the Neumanns, you think? Doing what, shooting a scene from
their movie? If that be true blue, I must say, Hollywood special effects have
really gotten good. Better in real life even than on a theater screen.”

“Ruddy Americans,” muttered McQuade indignantly, as the ship
and the battle were now so high, it was hard to make out any details.

• • • •

The battle was not going well.

The Oni had split up, englobing the ship, firing plasma
bolts from all around them. It seemed impossible to protect the ship from every
possible angle of attack.

And then there was the wizard firing at them too. It wasn’t
McDougall—that much Capie was sure of. A new player, so it would seem. But he
had a full-scale
Errabêlu
talisman, making his plasma bolts considerably
more powerful than what the Oni were firing.

Already there were half a dozen holes in the hull of the
Sirius
Effort
. None yet in the cockpit area or the engines, but that was just a
matter of time, considering how many bolts were getting past her and Daneel.

And she was flying as fast as she could but slowly falling
behind the ship.

She didn’t realize it, but they were already twenty seconds
into the launch, at one mile altitude and moving at 350 miles per hour. All she
knew was that it was increasingly difficult to keep up with the ship.

• • • •

The ship was getting pounded, Paul knew. His virtual control
panel was showing hull breaches in both cargo holds and Deck 3, the living
quarters. No telling how much damage they had already taken.

He was keeping a watchful eye on Capie and Daneel, splitting
the viewscreen to monitor both. They didn’t seem to be doing all that well either.

Well, maybe there was a way to help them a mite.

With a hand on the controls, he started pushing buttons.

• • • •

Capie was very much surprised when one of the engines
sputtered and died.

Had it taken damage? She really didn’t have time to turn and
look, so busy was she defending herself.

She was making progress, of a sort. Instead of deflecting or
blocking the plasma bolts, she was now opening portals for them. The opposing
wizard had done the same once or twice and she was taking a page from his play
book.

Then, without warning, the ship spun on an axis, twisting in
part due to the loss of one engine but probably from Paul’s assistance as well.
Now the engine that was still running was pointing in a new direction—at two of
the Oni on Daneel’s side of the ship.

Like moths in a flame, they momentarily grew very bright and
then disappeared. The ship maintained its spin, trying to line up on other Oni.

But they scattered, momentarily taking the stress off of
her. She took the opportunity to focus exclusively on one particular Oni who
was looking at the ship and not at her.

She fired with everything she had.

The Oni vanished.

The second engine fired up again, the
Sirius Effort
lining up once more on its launch profile.

• • • •

Daneel had an idea.

He too had seen the other wizard use a portal to swallow one
of the plasma bolts fired at him, diverting it harmlessly off to some other
place.

Timing it carefully, Daneel did the same, opening a portal,
but not with just a single entry and exit. Instead, his portal had three
entries and one exit. Swallowing the plasma bolts from three of the Oni, a
single combined and much larger bolt emerged from the exit—aimed directly at
the first of the three Oni.

Surprised by the sudden tactic, the Oni was unable to defend
itself, critically injured from ‘friendly fire’ and dropped in sudden free
fall, headed for the ground.

Daneel grinned wickedly, lining up to do it again.

• • • •

She was falling behind, no longer able to keep up with the
ship. So too were the Oni and the
Errabêlu
wizard.

Daneel was suddenly at her side, his screen displaying a
large typed message.

“Go, Mom, now!”

She nodded and opened a portal—

—emerging into the living quarters of the
Sirius Effort
.

The place was a shambles! This compartment had taken a
direct hit from a plasma bolt, leaving a basketball sized hole in the hull
right above the bed, opening this deck to space. And the clutter! Everything not
lashed or bolted down was strewn around the room. A huge mess!

It didn’t matter for now, something to be taken care of
later. Right now, Paul was more important. So she darted for the ladder,
heading to the cockpit. Due to the ship’s acceleration, she needed a spell to
help her along the way.

• • • •

Patrick McNamee held up a hand, restraining his remaining
Oni as he watched the strange craft accelerate away from him, apparently
heading for outer space. He was already so high up that he found it difficult
to breathe even with a spell to help out.

He wasn’t happy about letting those mongrels get away. On
the other hand, he didn’t feel responsible for their escape either. There had
been
three
wizards involved, not just one! McDougall hadn’t told him
that part. And maybe the bluming bafoon hadn’t known either. But
three
rogue
wizards!

Worse, one of them appeared to be a metal box of some sort!
However, McNamee was already having second thoughts about that. He sure
couldn’t see himself convincing anyone in
Errabêlu
of that! Perhaps, in
the heat of battle…could he have been mistaken? Perhaps it was an illusion of
some sort…?

He didn’t mind them doing in McDougall, that dorb! Dumb as a
door knob, that one.

But the buggers had invaded his country! And they had taken
out more than a dozen of his Oni!

Well, at least he had put several big holes into that odd
looking ship. It might come crashing down someplace. At the very least, he
could put out the word to others in
Errabêlu
to keep an eye peeled.