The Unearthing (6 page)

“General Harrod,” Bloom said as the General’s image appeared onscreen, “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Good evening, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Harrod answered, “I’ll be brief. You will collect all data that you have recorded about the New Mexico deep scan operation and pack it for immediate transport back home.”

“General?”

“There’s a jump plane fuelled and ready for takeoff at Edwards,” Harrod continued, “In ninety minutes, the plane will be docking with Concord 3. I will be aboard and at that time I will take delivery of the optic slips.”

“With all due respect General, Concord 3 is an international space station and is not subject to American military jurisdiction or control,” Bloom said, “If you intend on acquiring a copy of the data, you’ll either have to take it up with the World Space Agency, or with the World Aboriginal Anthropological Society; they’re the ones who commissioned the scan and so by international proprietary law it belongs to them.”

“Lieutenant-Colonel Bloom I’m not putting in a request. As your superior officer, I am
ordering
you to stand by and surrender the data. You don’t have any choice in the matter. I am seizing them, as they directly relate to the national security of the United States.”

“You are neither my immediate superior nor in any position to order me to surrender those slips,” Bloom snapped, indignant rage filling her. “You sure as hell don’t have the authority, General, to breach international law and violate World Council treaties! And begging your pardon, General, you damn well know all of this already!” She kit the kill switch on her keypad and severed the communication. Seconds later, she was sending an emergency audiovisual linx to World Space Agency headquarters. She was immediately put through to space station control in Hamburg, Germany.

“Colonel Bloom,” The control operator responding said, “This is Brenda Hensing. How can I help you?”

“We have a situation up here,” Bloom replied. “I have reason to believe that members of the United States Defence Intelligence Agency are going to try boarding the station within the next two hours.”

“What? I don’t understand. Why would they--”

The signal began degrading; Bloom couldn’t make out what Hensing was saying.

“Say again, Hamburg,” She called, “Say again, please.” Hensing’s voice came back through the linx, faintly. “We’re getting a lot of static on--” the image onscreen froze, depixillated and was replaced with a plain blue background. The words

EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS RELAY FAILED

Appeared onscreen. Bloom tried to re-establish the linx, but could not.

“Oh fuck,” she hissed.

Throughout time the corrupt have risen to power. Throughout time they have manipulated the Truth in order to stay in power, even when at the cost of Life. The greatest weapon of the corrupt has always been ignorance. But Truth yearns to be free and it always finds a champion…

THREE

INDOMITABLE TRUTH

He regarded them with ice-blue eyes over a hale, angular face. The corners of his mouth curved upwards into an oh-so slight, ever-present smile, this Colonel Jude. As their captor sat down Echohawk couldn’t help the feeling that he was a supplicant before a king awaiting judgment. Jude consulted a notepad which he then tossed down onto the collapsible metal desk that had until recently served as Echohawk’s command post within the lab building. Echohawk and Santino stood before Colonel Jude, two of Jude’s men behind them.

“Do you have any idea,” Jude began, “Just how often it is that I’ve been called in during my career to help save people from themselves?” The tall soldier regarded them, the crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes reaching outward as he squinted.

“You strike me as more of a hired killer, than a professional hero.” Santino said, angrily. Jude stared at him a long moment, perhaps wondering how Santino had gained such astute insight.

“I’ve been that too, when necessary,” Jude said, “Right now, I’m the man who’s keeping you from further digging on the object you’ve discovered out here.”

“Do you have any idea what it
is
that we’ve discovered out here?” Echohawk demanded angrily.

“No, Professor Echohawk and neither do you. That’s the problem.” Jude leaned forward in his chair, as if trying to explain things to two errant schoolchildren.

“The fact is gentlemen, that the object could be anything. And until such time as a proper threat assessment can be made, it is in the interests of National Security to halt the dig.”

“What threat can an object that’s been buried for the last sixty-five million years possibly pose to national security?” Echohawk demanded.

“What threat did the Kreutz virus pose to humankind while it lay dormant in a cave in the Amazon for ten thousand years, until clear cutting exposed it to cattle farmers?” Jude countered. “Professor, my job here is simple: I’m shutting the dig down and I’m going to debrief you and everyone associated with this project on everything you know about the object. Once I’ve completed that, then my superiors will decide what action is best taken.”

Of course, this wasn’t strictly true; his superior, namely General Harrod, had already decided what action was to be taken: Echohawk, Santino and the Laguna Pyramid archaeological dig team were to be debriefed and then silenced. The dig site would be closed, permanently and the world would get back to normal. Contingencies had already been discussed, ensuring that no one came out to the dig site for a very long time. This was New Mexico, after all. The Laguna Dig would unearth highly radioactive, contaminated soil from War Three. That contamination would of course force the United States government to cordon off the entire area for the next hundred years or more. A shame about the archaeologists, really, but there were risks to digging within the fallout zone of one of the dirtiest atomic bomb blasts of the war. Jude had no problems with his orders in this case. Everyone on-sight were to be considered red-shirts; expendable. It wasn’t the first time he’d been ordered by his government to kill and certainly not the first time he and his troops had targeted civilians. Covert Operations were never pretty. However, they were almost always necessary. And if there was indeed a Type Seven buried beneath their feet at this moment, it was imperative that this area be secured.

“So, quite simply, Professor Echohawk, the quicker you are to cooperate with us, the quicker this will all be over.”

♦♦♦

A hastily called meeting in the office module brought Bloom together with most of her senior staff: Major Jack Benedict, her executive officer and the only one aboard with whom she’d served before; Captain Charles Boucher, Bloom’s head of station security; Captain Elizabeth Donnelly, the station’s operations chief and Major Louise Cohen, the Officer of the Watch.

“Current as of now we have a situation,” Bloom explained, “For some reason the deep scan we were commissioned to do of north-western New Mexico has attracted some unwanted attention. The Defence Intelligence Agency has decided to black out all Grid communication access to the target area and seize all material relating to the deep scan, including the originating systems aboard this station. We’ve been ordered to turn over absolutely everything we have relating to the scans, including the science console core drives.”

“But they can’t do that,” Benedict replied, “This station is under international jurisdiction.”

“General Harrod seems to think he can do whatever he wants, Exo.” Bloom looked around the table and stood.

“A jump plane left Edwards’ Air Force Base less than twenty minutes ago. ETA with the station is ninety-eight minutes. Before that plane gets here there are several things we have to do.” She turned to Benedict first. The younger Black man leaned forward almost conspirationally to listen. He trusted Bloom implicitly; they’d both flown sorties together as combat pilots during the Australian Conflict a decade past. She’d been squadron leader then. When all but their two planes were destroyed during one firefight, it was her orders and deft manoeuvring that saw them both through.

“Major Benedict, you and Captain Boucher need to secure the station. Seal off all docking ports and the accessways between the docking hub and the rest of the station. That won’t stop them, but it will slow them down. Major Cohen, I need you to determine who among the crew we can trust and who we can’t. Everyone we can’t place above suspicion will have to be locked down in the habitat carousel. I suspect some of our fellow Americans might think we’re mutinying against the DIA and therefore the US government.” Bloom turned to Donnelly, “Captain, you and I will go over the telemetry from the deep scan. We need to know what it is that’s down there, causing this mess. I want to know exactly why the DIA has decided to violate World Council treaty in order to seize this information. Maybe then we can figure out what to do with it.”

“Wouldn’t that put us in direct violation of orders?” Boucher, the senior staff’s lone Canadian officer asked.

“Whose orders?” Bloom asked. “We’re under the direct and exclusive authority of the World Space Agency up here.”

“General Harrod’s for one,” Cohen replied, “With all due respect Lieutenant-Colonel, he did issue specific orders.”

“I’m afraid they’re orders I can’t legally recognize,” said Bloom, “And all they can do is haul us before a hearing. We’d be exonerated.”

“And our careers would stall,” Donnelly protested, “I’d like to rise in rank and pay a little, before I retire. I’d also like to avoid a series of assignments to Godforsaken posts.”

“Like this one?” Bloom asked. “My career was stalled too, a few years back. I was court-martialled twice, acquitted twice and I was never supposed to make Major.” She tapped the clusters on her uniform for effect and then continued. “Your objections will be duly noted in my log. If you like, I can confine you to quarters for the duration. Following me on this one will be done strictly on a voluntary basis.”

“Count me in, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Major Benedict said.

“Me as well,” Cohen added.

“What have I got to lose? I work for the Canadian Armed Forces. We’re not violating orders that came from
my
government,” Boucher confirmed.

“I’m in,” Donnelly said, curtly, “Under protest, but, I’m in.”

Bloom nodded.“Then it looks like we have a job to do,” she said.

♦♦♦

The soldiers had done cursory interviews and separated the workers into two groups: Those who knew the full scope of the object they were unearthing and those who did not. The people with little or no knowledge were all herded together, while anyone with any real knowledge was kept isolated and under guard. James and Peter had been quick to pick up on this and played dumb well enough to end up grouped in with those who were genuinely ignorant of the object buried beneath them. They stood together plotting their next move.

“What do you think?” Peter asked James as they tried not to seem too obvious about watching their military captors’ movements.

“I think that when we get out of this I’m going to go buy a pack of joints and smoke one after the other.”

“I hear you,” Peter said, “But that’s what I mean:
how
do we get out of this?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out, myself. What do you think is
really
going on, here? I mean, did we accidentally dig up something the government buried down here, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted, “But I don’t see how they did unless they tunnelled out the whole desert before they built it.”

“Then why do they want so badly to keep this quiet?” James asked. “If it isn’t some super secret government installation, then it’s just the ruins of a civilization that predates man. So what’s the big deal? As old as the planet is and as long as the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, it’s pretty egotistical of us to think that we’re the first intelligent civilization to walk the Earth.”

“That’s just it James,” Peter said, “What if there’s a third option, one that is the exact reason the feds sent in the troops?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, please don’t say aliens.”

“It has to be considered! What if whatever’s been buried here in the desert for the last sixty-five million years
isn’t
of Earth origin at all?” James looked around at the soldiers, noticing not for the first time how many of them had their rifles at the ready.

“Then I’d say we’re in a lot of trouble,” he said.

♦♦♦

Using handholds built into the padded bulkheads of the space station’s narrow corridors, Bloom pulled herself through the access way and into the science module. Weightless but with mass, her stomach and ears telling her she was in freefall, Bloom—like everyone else not currently in the 2/3 Earth-gravity of the habitat carousel—had to be careful not to become disoriented or move too swiftly. More than once in the time she’d been here Bloom had witnessed someone slamming headfirst into a bulkhead. In zero gravity nosebleeds could get very serious.

The science module was deserted except for the stocky redheaded woman working one of the console stations. Her hair was tied in a French braid to keep it from floating off and she was strapped into the workstation’s chair so as not to drift. She drank coffee from a bag with a valve-straw that floated near to hand. Bloom took a bag of coffee from the dispenser mounted by the main hatch before pulling herself over to where Captain Donnelly worked. Anyone entering the same hatch Bloom had used would first get the impression that the two women were glued to the ceiling.