Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (45 page)

He screamed, “I hear you!” Beating his hand against the console in frustration. His composure had frayed beyond the point of sanity.

“
Grail
, you must begin braking, or you will overshoot the docking port,” the voice said again, sounding more concerned.

He started pushing buttons. Anything. Something had to work. “I hear you,” he said, almost sobbing. One of the switches he pushed shut off the lights on the bridge. He pushed it again but they did not return. Out the windows, the
Marian
was looming huge, and drifting slowly to the left.

“Are you having an emergency?” the voice asked.

“Of course I am having an emergency,” he roared.

“We are initiating a remote override and will be bringing you in,” the voice said again. “Please stand by for emergency braking maneuver, and automated approach control.”

The Grail
lurched, and he felt himself being pressed forward against the console as the
Marian Destiny
swung back into view. “Thank you,” he said, bowing his head in prayer as the ship maneuvered toward the docking port on the side of the station. He felt the distant thump as the dock connected, and he rose from the seat, pushing himself forward through the zero gravity. He felt a wave of nausea rush over him, but he was well past sick. There was nothing left inside him.

He banged into the wall next to the door and felt something slick against the jamb. He knew what it was, even if he couldn’t see it. It was the same wet blood that still covered his hands. Blood that never seemed to dry. He pulled himself through the door, and using the seats in the passenger cabin as handholds, tugged himself toward the stairway down to the lower floor. There were lights below, but thankfully he couldn’t see any of the bodies floating in the crowded room. This was where the Pope and his brother Cardinals had died.

The virus had taken them so quickly, he thought. If only they hadn’t brought it on board with them. He pulled himself toward the airlock, thinking about what he’d seen. What he’d lived through. What the Holy See had said about him being The One. He was the one.
The only one.

He reached the door to the station just as it swung open, and two technicians pushed through. “Thank God,” he said, stopping as he saw the terrified looks on their faces. He looked down at the front of his robes and realized how he must look to them. Red on Red. Deep bloody red.

“It’s alright, I don’t have it,” he said. “They’re all dead but I have been spared. I am
The One.”

They swung toward the hatch and frantically pulled themselves back in the direction they’d come.

“Wait!” he said, reaching out to grab the ankle of the closer technician. His hand slipped against the man’s coverall, slick with blood, and he lost his grip. The technician swung his other foot around and pushed Cardinal Santori away, his shoe making a wet, squishing sound as it hit his robes.

The Cardinal tumbled back and the man shot through the hatch trailing small spheres of blood behind him. The door slammed shut, and through the small porthole he saw the first one punching a switch on the wall. The light on his side of the door turned red, and he heard hissing air through the wall. “What are you doing?” he hollered, banging his hand against the window. The man he’d grabbed made the sign of the cross and floated backward away from the window. A moment later he heard another bumping sound, and felt the ship shove away from the station.

He hauled himself back through the ship, past the bodies once more and onto the bridge in time to see the
Marian Destiny
swing overhead. He felt the ship moving once more, pressure building as it began to accelerate downward toward the Earth.

“But I’m still alive,” he wailed, knowing that no one except God himself could hear him. “I am immune! I am the One who can save the world.”

Several minutes later, as the ship plunged back into the atmosphere, he too was called home.

***

Chapter Twenty-Nine:

The Villagers Storm the Castle

Washington:

“Tonight, as the world faces its longest night, humanity its darkest hour, I come before you to give you a message of hope. Not of personal hope, but hope for all of us.

“Mankind will not perish. It will be reborn.

“Tomorrow morning, as we are all staring up at the sky and waiting for the inevitable transition the Universe has brought to us, our people in the lunar colonies will be signing a profound and sweeping accord that will guarantee peace to our children, and the children that will come after them.

“We have faced a great challenge over the last twenty-three months, one that has ultimately shown us both the greatest of our abilities, and the most grievous of our failings. For all that we aspire toward our potential, we have fallen, not to a lack of ability, but to a deficit of wisdom. When we should have stood together as one people, we have pulled apart. Our ideologies have separated us behind walls too great to overcome.

“But our children, who will live on in the colonies, have learned from this lesson, and have pledged to never again allow themselves to stand divided. They will return to Earth someday and will build anew, together as one people.

“Tonight as we all stare into the Universe and the destiny it has given us, many of us will contemplate the meaning of our existence. As we face what may well be our final hours, we will all come to know the reality of our fears. But we must know in our hearts these fears are transient.

“Rest easy in the knowledge that, for all our failings as mortal creatures, we will transcend this darkness and rise again. The human spirit is a force that all the powers in the Universe cannot overcome. It is an energy, a certainty of purpose, that will not go quietly into the long night.

“From the darkness, our children shall once again bring forth light. The Earth will abide all, and someday our descendents will stand again on the green, grassy fields of this world, and the sun will rise again for humanity.

“May God have mercy on us, and forgive us our mortal failings. May He lift us up gently, and comfort us in the warmth of His eternal love. May He watch over and protect our children in the colonies, keeping them safe so they may return.

“God bless us all.”

With that, Sylvia Hutton retired to her quarters, a single Secret Service agent following her to her doorway. Outside, an army of men protected the White House, but in here, she wanted to be alone. For a few minutes.

Janice sat on the couch watching as she came in, friend enough to know the price she’d paid, and that for now, she needed to have no demands made of her. Not even the demand for conversation.

Sylvia kicked off her shoes, casually flinging them across the room. Shrugging her coat off she pitched it over the back of a chair. With each item of clothing, she felt another burden lift off her shoulders. She headed into her dressing room and came back a minute later wrapped in a fluffy, dark blue terrycloth robe and bright pink fuzzy slippers. She’d let her hair down and it hung around her shoulders.

Janice blinked in surprise. She’d never, in all her years working in the White House, seen the President look so relaxed. The weight of responsibility had finally been passed over to someone else.

“Now let’s get some ice cream,” Sylvia said, grinning like a wicked schoolgirl.

***

Stormhaven:

Dave and Sophie had slept on the way down from the colony, and were sitting watch with Mica, not that she needed their help, but if a snap decision had to be made, Tom wanted someone around to hold the computer’s hand. Sentience was one thing, morality and compassion were quite another.

Dave suspected none of them had slept when, around sundown, they’d all begun to wander back into the communications center, on their own.

Daryl had been walking the fortifications, like a king would inspect the ramparts before a siege of his castle. Tom had busied himself going through Cole’s apartment, making sure anything of potential importance to his friend had been loaded into the
Michael
. Shapiro had gone to his office and filed one last report to the Department of Homeland Security. At the end of his report he’d attached his official resignation, something he’d not told anyone he was planning to do.

When they’d returned, they were all certain they’d done everything that was needed. Tom walked up to the window, staring up at the blood red sky. Smoke drifted across from the campfires of the Army of the Holy Right. Visible as a bright star, Antu glared down well above the horizon. Mars stood out a few degrees behind it, faintly crimson.

“Did you hear the President’s speech?” Dave asked, joining him.

“Yeah. Mica piped it through the com,” he said. “Quite a woman.”

“You know she’s riding it out at the White House?” Shapiro said.

“She’ll never survive there,” Tom said.

“Yeah, she knows that too,” he said, “but she feels responsible for the failure of Prometheus, and she’s using this as a way to fall on her sword.”

“That’s damn noble, even if it is a bit out of touch,” Dave said.

“I couldn’t do that,” Sophie said. “I’m too much of a fighter.”

“Well it looks like you’re about to get your chance,” Tom said, pointing toward the ridge where the fires began spreading into a thousand little sparks. Torches.

“I feel like Dr. Frankenstein facing the villagers,” Daryl said.

***

Outside Stormhaven, the Western Front:

Three armored Humvees, captured from Vandenberg, snaked their way toward the small ridge, surrounded by a wall of human flesh, their lights off to conceal their approach from any potential observers.

Bodies lay on the ground between them and the fortress, evidence that not everyone would rise when killed. Perhaps they were doubters. Rolling forward, they edged toward their safe position, and it became obvious those lying on the ground had not simply died, but had been crushed under piles of bodies, most of them pulverized to the point of being unrecognizable.

The ring of torches spread out along the fence line, a river of fire circling the buildings like a flaming moat.

Scattered around the perimeter, other groups of vehicles also waited to rush forward, hoping to get into the safe zones. This attack was a probing mission, unless of course they succeeded in getting the trucks close enough to be able to launch their missiles.

Suddenly a red flare rose from their base camp. The time had come.

***

Stormhaven:

“Here they come,” Tom said. A ring of torches arced high into the air, spinning forward and rolling over the damp ground.

“That was impressive,” Dave said.

“Probing the defenses,” Shapiro suggested. “Trying to figure out how close they can get.”

Sure enough, as if to prove his point, they rushed forward and chucked the torches again.

“Jeez, this is going to take them all night,” Dave said.

They charged forward yet again, throwing them inward. Another row at the perimeter started the process, creating a second ring.

“Now that’s a little more interesting,” Sophie said, watching them spreading concentric rings around the community.

A third, and then a fourth ring began advancing. “If we allow them more than another two hundred yards, they will be within missile range,” Mica said.

“Other than probing our defenses, what purpose does this lightshow serve?” Tom asked, looking at Shapiro and Dave for answers.

“It gives them a visual grid of the topography?” Dave suggested, shrugging.

“It might allow them to illuminate any aerial vehicles we deploy,” Shapiro added.

Dave looked up at the sky. The red had faded to near black. “If we’re going to cover our blind spots, we should probably get the Flight Infantry up. We’ll just keep them high enough to stay above the light.

One more toss of the torches, another fifty yards. Tom nodded and Dave tapped his earphone comlink, giving orders. One of the screens on the wall showed a dozen men float up off the floor of the fabrication center and shoot out between the barely opened doors. Another screen showed simultaneous video from their helmet cameras. They all spun dizzily upward, and then settled in pairs into position over their designated spots.

“Lucas to Command,” one of the infantrymen said. A border appeared around his camera on the wall screen. “We’ve got several vehicles already in the pockets.”

“What are they doing?” Dave asked.

“Just sitting,” he said.

“Can we push them back?” Tom said.

“How’d they get there?” Daryl asked.

“While we’ve been watching the fire dance, they probably drove up,” Sophie said.

“Mica did you see them?” Tom asked.

“There is no visual image on any of the cameras,” she said. “My last recorded position for the vehicles was beyond the perimeter. I am unable to get effective infrared imaging due to the thermal interference created by the torches.”