Robert Doherty - Project Aura

“Who the hell are you?” Cesar shoved his chair back. “What are you doing?”

“Stay seated,” Dalton said. “Why did you destroy Bright Gate?”

“I didn’t,” Cesar said. “The place was booby-trapped.”

That made sense to Dalton as he remembered Hammond relaying that Kirtley had warned her he had a contingency plan in case he was killed. It didn’t matter-Cesar’s attack had initiated that event.

“Do you know who you work for?” Dalton asked.

“I work for me.”

Dalton shook his head. “You’re being manipulated.” He sat down across from Cesar, a mirror image. “Where is Professor Souris?”

“Company,” Barnes yelled.

A woman entered the courtyard, pistol at the ready. She took in Barnes and Jackson, their right arms ending in tubes, then blinked at the two Cesars seated at the table.

“Valika!” Cesar cried with Dalton barely a second behind, saying the same thing.

“Kill him,” Dalton pointed across the table.

“No!” Cesar cried out. He jabbed his finger back at Dalton. “Shoot him. He’s one of those things.”

The pistol in Valika’s hand shifted back and forth between the two of them. Barnes and Jackson were still, waiting to see how Dalton was going to play this out.

A pair of guards burst through a doorway and began firing at Jackson, who jumped, re-formed, and fired, hitting one of them. Barnes took out the other one. Valika took advantage of the distraction to grab one of the “beer cans” off her belt and pull the pin. She tossed it right at the table. Dalton saw it land and was surprised that she would risk killing her own boss.

Then it exploded.

“I’ve got major power disruption!” Hammond yelled as the screen that showed the status of the three Psychic Warriors went crazy and then blacked out. Her fingers slammed into keys as she tried to regain contact. “I’ve lost them.”

The effect on the real plane was negligible. A simple pop, no larger than that of a firecracker. On the virtual plane it was another story.

The electromagnetic burst hit Dalton ’s avatar like a searing hot wind, blowing away the form in bits and chunks of energy. He felt no pain, just shock, his psyche blown back with the avatar.

Then there was only grayness, no form, no substance. He reached for the connection with Sybyl, but there was nothing.

The three main engines on the shuttle ignited, spewing flame, drawing their fuel from the external tank. Inside, Eagle Six experienced the familiar feeling as the entire craft shook with restrained power, the entire system still bolted to the launch platform by eight hold-down bolts at the bottom of the two solid rocket boosters. The roar increased as the SRBs ignited. A split second later small explosives cut the bolts and the shuttle began lifting off the launch platform.

Eagle Six was slammed back in his couch as the shuttle accelerated. Sixty seconds after liftoff the pressure reached its maximum, then began to recede. One hundred and twenty seconds into the flight, the two SRBs had used all their fuel and detached, falling back toward the ocean for recovery.

For six more minutes the shuttle’s engines continued to fire, pushing them up, before finally shutting down. The external tank was jettisoned and the orbiter was finally in its basic configuration. There was another burst from the maneuvering thrusters to thrust them into the designated orbit.

Eagle Six unbuckled from his chair and stood. He keyed the intercom. “Begin preparation for EVA in”-he checked his computer screen that held the mission pro-file-“three hours and forty minutes.”

“What happened to them?” Cesar had finished screaming at his security detail. Even though he knew there was nothing they could have done to stop the intruders, it made him feel better. There was no sign of the three in-truders-they’d simply vanished when the strange grenade Valika had thrown had popped. Cesar had felt nothing, although he’d had a moment of doubt when he saw it land under the table.

“The grenade exploded on the plane they travel on,” Valika said. “I don’t know if it killed them, because that wasn’t really them.”

That didn’t make sense to Cesar, but he was thankful nonetheless. “Who do you think they were? I thought Bright Gate was destroyed.”

Valika had been thinking about exactly that question while Cesar ranted at his guards. “Somebody might have escaped from Bright Gate.”

“But don’t they need equipment? Like Souris does?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She remembered the helicopters they had spotted departing the Bright Gate site and told Cesar about them.

“We leave here now,” Cesar ordered. “We’ll meet the ship on its way here.”

Even in his cell in the Hanoi Hilton on the darkest and dreariest of days, after being tortured, Dalton had never known such despair and isolation as he felt now. He didn’t even have the pain from his body to let him know he was alive. He had consciousness, barely, but for all he knew, he might indeed be dead. This might be what happened when a person died, disconnected from their body.

He saw nothing but featureless gray all around. He felt nothing, heard nothing. There was no link to Sybyl, no indication of Barnes or Jackson.

He had no mouth to speak with. He had no idea if he was still in the virtual plane near Saba, or if the explosion had sent him elsewhere.

A part of him simply wanted to let go. He was sure that if he gave up the tight grip he had on his thoughts, he would simply fade away into nothingness. He remembered the pilot who had been brought to the cell next to his, beaten half to death by villagers, stunned by the sudden change from living on board an aircraft carrier to the hell of the POW prison. Dalton remembered how he had held the pilot’s hand all night long, to let him know he wasn’t alone.

And the pilot had died the next day, more of despair than of his wounds.

Dalton held on to the core of his being ever tighter. He had made a promise to himself then and he wasn’t about to give up now. He had promised that day that he would never let go of life like that.

He wasn’t certain he was alive, he realized. But he had feelings and that was enough.

“Are they alive?” Mentor asked, staring at the three bodies suspended in their isolation tubes. The machines continued to function, slowly sending breathing fluid to them.

“The bodies are,” Dr. Hammond said. “But we’ve lost contact with the psyches.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Sybyl recorded a surge on the virtual plane. What caused it is anyone’s guess.”

“Can you bring them back?”

“Not without a connection,” Hammond said. “They’re like the other bodies, the ones we rescued. Still alive but no one home.”

Mentor slapped his hand on the top of the computer. “Goddamn it!”

“I’ll keep trying,” Hammond said.

Linda McFairn had never liked enclosed spaces. The massive opening on the side of Cheyenne Mountain that led down to Space Command wouldn’t be considered small, but it was enclosed, especially as the car taking her passed by the huge steel door that would be closed if the site were ever attacked. She clutched her briefcase tighter as the car descended further into the mountain.

Ostensibly she was here on an unannounced inspection. Given that Space Command was one of the nerve centers for national defense, the Deputy Director of the NSA doing such a thing was not unprecedented.

A one-star general was waiting for her just outside the inner door where the car came to a halt. He opened the door before she had a chance to reach for it.

“Welcome to Space Command, Deputy Director McFairn. I’m General Mitchell.”