David Golemon - Legacy

“Oh, shit, Ryan, tell me you’re seeing this?”

“Tewlewiski, just get the hell out of there!” Ryan called out.

The giant mechanical monstrosity tilted its rounded head and swiveled to the right. The neck elongated and spiraled outward toward the spot where Sergeant Chao had landed. He was attempting to rise to his feet when he saw what was confronting him. Chao hesitated as he gained his knees. As if in a slow-motion dream he tried to remove the weapon from his back, but the strap caught on his oxygen container. The beast’s eyes rotated; it was following what Chao was doing. Its neck retracted into its body. The mechanical monstrosity took two steps backward and halted. Tewlewiski froze, but the Chinese sergeant didn’t. He finally maneuvered the kinetic weapon from his back and without aiming he fired it three times, launching the faster-than-sound bolts of tungsten steel toward the beast. The first two rounds slammed into the steel plate of the torso; the third hit a shoulder blade that was nothing more than hardened plate. The machine rose and waggled as if it were a man who had accidentally hit himself on the thumb with a hammer. A solar panel rose from the area under the plate and then vanished again almost as quickly. The beast turned its eyes toward Chao. It moved faster than either man could believe. It reached Chao in three giant steps and picked him up. While holding the sergeant in one hand, the beast swiped at Tewlewiski with the other. He managed to duck, but the Army sergeant knew he’d be dead in a moment anyway as he felt the sharpened steel fingertips penetrate his suit at the waist. He cursed just as several kinetic energy rounds struck the metal giant in the back.

Chao was firing a continuous stream of tungsten rounds at the mechanical beast and he could see the giant flinch as the half pound missiles struck its back. It was as if the rounds were causing it pain.

“The solar panels on its back, can you hit them?” Ryan called as he scrambled inside the command deck on Altair.

The Chinese sergeant took aim and fired again. The beast turned its full attention on the struggling Tewlewiski. Chao heard the desperate sounds coming from the American’s COM system and knew the sergeant was being squeezed to death. Chao kept up the steady stream of rounds, trying to aim for the spot where the double blades of steel covered the solar panels that Ryan must believe was its power source. Except for the loud pinging coming through the Chinese radio system, the small battle was as silent as the grave.

Finally it was if the beast had had enough of the game. It turned partially toward Chao and smashed the American astronaut with its free hand. The two steel claws slammed into the helmet and smashed it flat.

“No!” Chao shouted, as he advanced. The robotic killer turned toward him. It charged, but the sergeant held his ground. The beast jumped. Chao kept up the fire even as the beast came down on him, pounding his crushed body into the soft soil.

Ryan stared through the triangular window with the environmental suit only up to his waist.

The mechanical assassin straightened, its steel foot still firmly planted on the body of Chinese soldier. Its head rotated left and then right, and then went completely around in a circle. It seemed to look straight at Ryan, but paid him no attention. Then the robot simply fell over into the dust, curling into a large ball. It started to roll like tumbleweed in the direction of Shackleton Crater.

Alice Hamilton watched Garrison Lee as he mumbled in his drug-induced sleep. She had been against his traveling, but she knew that arguing with him would have been as useless as shouting at a brick wall.

She was sitting on a small camp chair in the darkened tent next to his cot. She reached out and took his hand and squeezed it. He stopped mumbling and settled down. She heard him call out her name softly and then his face relaxed. She reached up with her free hand and wiped a tear away that had slid down her cheek. Alice had never been one to cry, even when sorrow was bursting to break free of her soul.

She took a deep breath and reached over to retrieve his old brown fedora. She looked it over and sighed. She always wondered why he insisted on wearing that particular one. She was getting ready to place it back at the foot of the cot when she heard men outside of the tent. She looked at Lee for the briefest moment to make sure he had indeed settled into a deeper sleep, and then she eased her hand out of his. She stood and made her way to the tent flap.

Outside, underneath the hanging lights of the first gallery, Alice saw four men talking to three of Jack’s people that he had left behind after the main force had advanced. She overheard part of the conversation and stepped out of the tent.

“Excuse me, did you say that Colonel Collins has sent you to bring in more men?”

One of the soldiers, a Special Forces sergeant, saw Alice and nodded his head.

“Uh, yes, ma’am. He wants a backup force brought into gallery number two.”

“Has the colonel found something?” she asked, hoping for any information that would take her mind off Garrison.

“So far, ma’am, all I’ve seen are skeletons-Nazi skeletons, close to a thousand or so. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, we’d better get-”

That was as far as the sergeant got before the bullets cut him down. The six men with him didn’t even have time to bring their weapons up before fifty silenced bullets struck them down as well. Alice barely escaped being hit as one of the bullets slammed into the tent pole where she had placed her hand. As she ran to the closest of the fallen men, a hand reached out and took her by the arm.

“I’m sure he is far beyond the need for your attention, madam.”

Alice looked up into the dark eyes of the Mechanic.

She had seen the dossier on him that the FBI had sent Jack. She easily recognized the eyes. The beard was gone and the hair was longer than he wore during his insurgent days in Iraq, but it was the Mechanic.

“Azim Quaida, the Mechanic. Which do you want to be called, young man?” Alice asked. Her gray eyes never left the dark countenance staring at her.

“You know me and yet I do not know you. CIA?” he asked and released her hand.

“You’ve become very popular lately in my country,” she said.

“Yes, I imagine I have. The people responsible for that popularity are no longer in a position to use men such as myself.”

Alice didn’t say anything but tried to block the man’s path as he stepped to the tent flap to enter. He easily moved her to the side. He saw Lee lying on the cot with a blanket pulled nearly to his chin. The Mechanic looked from the old man to the woman who now stood next to him. By the look in the older woman’s eyes, the Mechanic knew that if she had been armed she most definitely would have attempted something stupid.

“I believe I saw you and this man enter the mine during the battle outside. Who are you and why are you here?”

Alice neither moved nor spoke.

“Madam, know that while I don’t particularly like women, I also wish them no harm. However, I have on occasion killed many of them. I shall have no qualms about ending your life.”

“Why don’t you save your questions for the colonel? He’s in there,” she said. She tilted her head to the left, indicating Gallery Number Two.

“Ah, the very resourceful Colonel Collins. You know him on a personal level?”

Alice again didn’t answer.

“You have said nothing, but have answered me nonetheless, madam. I suspect this old man knows him also, and that you may be close to him in some way. Therefore, you will be what is known as a bargaining chip.”