Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

“All right then,” said Simon quietly, looking straight at her face for a few seconds longer. Then, abruptly, as if released from a trance, he cracked his knees, bent down, and snatched at the gear he had by his feet: his small duffel bag, the climbing tools, and the bizarre weapon that Lucas had given them. He turned from her without another glance and started to walk straight ahead, deeper into the tunnel. She followed a few steps behind. Max brought up the rear.

The temperature was close to twenty degrees below zero-the suits told them so. They could feel the cold against their faces despite the technology’s best efforts. Nastasia wondered what would happen if the batteries ran out.

But they were close. The limited directional capabilities of the suits told them that they would reach Dragger Station in less than a mile.

It’s almost over, she told herself as she watched Simon trudge onwards, a scant few feet ahead of her. Finally, it will be over soon.

* * *

Blackburn tapped his shoulder and said, “I’ll be ready for the transport to the Nest in seven minutes. I need to see what the hell is going on down there for myself.” He hadn’t spoken a word of his intentions to his adjutant, but the man was a professional: he didn’t betray an ounce of surprise. He simply said, “Yes, sir, commander,” and slipped away to make the arrangements.

Things were happening, he knew-just outside of his view, just beyond his reach-and he didn’t like it when things happened. He had seen the long-lens images of the things they had uncovered more than ten thousand feet below the surface. He had read the reports and interviewed the few surviving workers about their experience before they had finally been put down. But he hadn’t seen them first-hand-at least not yet.

He needed to talk with Oliver Fitzpatrick face-to-face. It was time to get the information needed from the stubborn man, one way or another.

Oliver Fitzpatrick had been part of Blackburn’s greater plan. He had summoned the scientist to Antarctica to study the first of the anomalies and then imprisoned him when the situation began to get out of hand. He couldn’t risk having him leave-or talking to anyone. That’s why he was “killed,” to spread the story about his death. Oliver was Vector5’s now-now and forever. That was just the way it had to be.

But Blackburn was running out of time. The Committee wanted answers. The damn artifacts absolutely pulsed with a level of power that no one had ever seen before, and they wanted access to it immediately, not after years of overly cautious study.

As he stepped inside the transport, he checked the magazine of his rifle and placed it in his holster.

He was prepared to do whatever was necessary to end this.

This would be Oliver’s last chance.

* * *

The Black Ops team didn’t have a name; it didn’t have a designation. Its existence, though entirely secret even within the confines of Vector5, was completely denied. It simply didn’t exist, until it was needed by one of the very few, very powerful higher-ups in the organization.

Blackburn was one of those higher-ups. And right now he needed that team to exist.

The team members did not speak to each other as their specially equipped DITV left Dragger Station and pushed its way into a narrow fissure. The canyon was a shortcut: it would take them upward quickly, right to the entrance of the target site where the intruder vessel waited for them.

The intruder vessel was just a secondary consideration now. The real target was former Commander Roland.

The DITV seemed to writhe like a living thing as it climbed, compressing its sophisticated wheels against ice walls as hard as glass. The void below it fell well over one thousand feet; the shaft above it climbed just as high, though it was impossible to tell. The darkness in all directions was midnight black and impenetrable.

It didn’t matter. The Deep Ice Transport-or rather the AI that drove it-knew exactly where they were going.

There had been some kind of commotion at departure-something about those worthless, lazy workers who didn’t clear the departure zone quickly enough. No one on board knew or cared; the work they had been assigned had been finished. Now the high-voltage generator was securely mounted to the vehicle’s underside, poised to produce enough electricity to melt almost any material on contact-including whatever material comprised the body of the intruder vessel. The DIT was also mounted with a more powerful version of the ray gun carried by the soldiers themselves. The bullets of this particular armament were designed to penetrate deep frozen ice on impact, but they would also destroy any shield from vehicles that it came in contact with-the super-powered equivalent of Teflon-coated “cop killer” bullets, scaled up to the size and strength of a rocket-powered grenade.

The diehard soldiers thought about their armament as much as they thought of the workers they had left behind. If they thought about anything at all, they thought about their mission. That was all that mattered: kill Commander Roland and, if possible, destroy the intruder vessel.

Nothing else.

* * *

“Still no response?” Roland asked, trying to keep the shrill annoyance out of his voice.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Then call again. Now!”

He looked out the front windscreen of his Vehicle at the distant, immobile CS-23s attached to the sidewall of the airshaft. The massive ice Spiders were too large to go any farther down the utility tunnel; it was amazing they had managed to get as close to the intruder vessel as they had. Roland’s craft, however, was much smaller and far more maneuverable. It was fully capable of threading that icy needle.

They had literally waited hours for the go-ahead from Central to cross the last few thousand feet of ice and grime to take the target, but nothing had come through. Roland was past worrying about it: he had grown weary of bowing to protocol. It was time to act.

Roland was about to give the order to start down the pitch-black tunnel on foot when the comm officer suddenly straightened up, a finger to his earpiece. “Sir!” he said. “Finally! What is the word?”

The comm officer blinked wide eyes at him and forced out the words he clearly did not want to say. “You are instructed to stand down,” he said. “Pull back. Out of the airshaft. Retreat to Fissure 9.”

“What?” Roland said, purely astonished. “What? Who the hell gave that order?”

This time the comm officer touched a panel on his console and let the technology do the talking. The voice from Command was deep, resonant, and totally inhuman. It was a higher-order AI, the one who worked directly for Blackburn. “This command is a direct order from Central.”

“Who at Central?” Roland demanded. He had known all along that his failure to stop the intruder vessel could prove to be dangerous. Blackburn had no tolerance for such things.

“Sir, I’m picking up data from below Dragger Pass,” said the signals officer.

Roland’s whole body turned toward him. “Profile?”

The answer came instantly. “Sir, it seems to be one of our own vehicles heading up the fissure. Radio silhouette is familiar, sonar pick-up is dead on for a DITV. Other than that, I’ve got no ID.”

Black Ops, he told himself.

“All right,” he said grimly “I think I know what this is. Let’s pull back.” He was no different than the rest of them; he had heard all the stories about Commanders who had been “retired” by nameless, silent Black Ops teams. No one doubted that Blackburn was paranoid enough to do it, even to the veterans who had helped him build up the project from nothing more than a mission.

It didn’t matter. “It is what it is,” he muttered. Vector5’s second most popular motto, right up there with Forever Secret.