David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

“Time to shed these skins. Leave our bodies and travel the path of the Great Ones to the Red Land…”

“…where we’ll be reborn,” Isaac and Jacob said in unison.

“…and from our new home, with new eyes, we’ll observe the death throes of this planet and imagine the suffering as the world is purged. First, I will follow the instructions on the Tablet, and I will let it guide me from this flesh and into the machine, where only pure matter can interact with the Emerald Tablet’s true form.”

Isaac clapped his hands slowly, picturing it.

“We’ll set the target as the earth’s very core, and send the scalar energy waves at a direct path through the pole…”

Calderon approached the device, about to retrieve the Emerald Tablet, when a call came in over the speakers from the techs upstairs. He glanced up, and two men in lab coats rushed out of the room and leaned over the railing.

“What is it now?” Calderon snapped. “You should be powering down and resetting the arrays before we—”

“But that’s it, sir. We can’t power down!”

“What?”

Alexander perked up. His attention turned to the chair-device, where for just a moment he thought he saw an outline, like an afterimage of Calderon sitting there.

Except, that wasn’t Calderon.

“We can’t power down! It’s not letting us, not responding.”

Same build and posture, but one thing different…

Calderon fumed. “Then what’s it doing?”

…red hair!

“It’s firing, Sir.”

Calderon fumed. Firing without my guidance? “All right, so it’s still blasting Mount Shasta. Just turn the damn thing off already, that’s taken care of.”

“It’s not aimed at Mount Shasta anymore.”

Swearing, Calderon started toward the chair. I can’t wait until we’re free of this damned world. Just a few more hours. “All right, then where is it aiming?”

The technicians looked at each other, whispering, then pointing back. One of them ran inside the control room as the other raised up a hand to wait.

“Oh for heaven’s sake.” Calderon took another step toward the machine, which was still humming, still throwing off waves of photo luminescent energy, then stopped as one of the boys wasn’t standing still any longer.

Alexander had slipped by on the right, and was kneeling by Montross. Leaning over, whispering something as he tried to apply pressure to the stab wound.

Montross?

Calderon spun his head back around to the device, and for a glimmering instant, saw him: the flaming red hair, the shining blue eyes. Everything scintillating in an emerald radiance.

Montross! Sitting like an emperor on his throne. Like Loki after usurping Odin. Like Lucifer on the throne of Heaven, or just like Thoth, imagining he could usurp the rule of Marduk.

“Where is it aiming!?”

“Sir,” came the voice from above. “Nowhere right now. Just up in a straight line towards the east.” The tech’s voice cracked. “But in three hours and twelve minutes, after the scalar wave of destruction has traveled a distance of two hundred and fifty million miles…”

Calderon closed his eyes. “No.”

“…entering into the path, will be the planet Mars.”

“I assume,” Calderon said in a dull voice, “You’ve calculated the precise point on the surface that will be affected?”

“We have.” Another pause. “Cydonia.”

Throwing down his cane in frustration, Calderon dropped to his knees. Basking before the Emerald Tablet’s glow, he prepared himself.

“He’s got you,” Alexander whispered, glaring at him from his uncle’s side.

“Shut up.”

“Tricked you good.”

“Shut him up!” Calderon pointed and the guards moved in, past Isaac and Jacob, who were still standing, open-jawed, unsure of what just happened. “And if the dead man stirs, shoot him!”

“Father?” Isaac was at his side.

“Be quiet, and be ready. I’m going to stop the traitor. Beat him at his own game.”

“But has the pulse already fired?”

“Not long enough,” shouted the tech above. “Another thirty seconds and the power level of the scalar wave will be sufficient to penetrate the depth of the Cydonia installation, smash the barriers and reinforced supports, and—”

But Calderon had tuned him out. Or, more appropriately, he no longer had ears with which to hear.

He stood on gossamer legs, his form shimmering with plasma-like sparks.

Everything was as he had foreseen.

Freed from flesh, he was power.

Freed from all restrictions, he was invincible.

He was a god.

And his enemy sat before him, startled at his sudden appearance. And unable to extract himself from the machine. Unable to defend himself.

Thirty seconds , Calderon thought.

Plenty of time.

Ten minutes earlier, while three F-16 Fighting Falcons roared overhead, dispatched from Eielson Air Force Base, the Jeep Cherokee rammed through the chain wire fence at the southwest edge of the facility.

“Think it’ll work?” Caleb shouted over the tortured metal-on-metal collision that sent them rocketing off-road for a moment. The tires dug into the fresh snow, spun, then Nina got the Jeep back on the old service road and accelerated for the dimly-visible supply center, adjacent to the office buildings.

“Well, we heard the jets but I’m sure their security people picked them up on radar long before that. Their attention has got to be on the sky.”

“Temple said he ordered radio silence, too. So if they tried contact, they’d get nothing. Which would have to scare them a bit.”

“And the scalar weapon, I imagine, isn’t good for knocking out fast-moving aircraft, only motionless enemy sites.”

Caleb cringed, thinking about the Library of Alexandria, the devastation and loss of life, not to mention the original copies of all that wisdom.

As the snow and ice slapped the windshield, keeping the wipers working in hyperspeed, Nina shifted and threw caution out the window. “Wish our boys weren’t in there, otherwise we could have had them just level the damn place. Napalm it up.”

Caleb gripped the shrouded Spear in both hands, hefting it, feeling the rough rounded edge, just enough of a hilt-like handle, wishing he had a long staff to fit on it to truly make it a lance-like weapon instead of what it was now: a glorified dagger. He thought of his last vision, that of Alexander about to be attacked by Isaac.

“They’re hardly out of danger.”

“I know.” She shot him a quick look. “And I’m sorry. I wasn’t there, I didn’t know.”

“We’ll get there in time,” Caleb said, staring ahead, seeing the dark shape approaching. “We’ll get there.”

“Now that’s some confidence even I don’t have.” Nina slowed, seeing two smaller shapes peel away from the building. “Especially since we’ve got company.”

“Of course they’ve guarded the back.” Caleb unraveled the Spear point. “But they’re woefully unprepared.”

“No idea what’s going to hit them.”

The men, visible now in the brutal maelstrom, raised their guns.

Caleb responded, raising the Spear, pointing it at them through the windshield. “Confident or not, I have no idea how this works.”

Nina shrugged. “Then I’d suggest ducking.”

The windshield cracked just as Nina lowered her head and peeked around the steering wheel, aiming for the pair of defenders. But Caleb merely sat still, Spear held out before him like a narrow shield. Two more cracks in the windshield. A bullet whizzed past and then—SLAM—one of the guards went flying over the roof, while the other just managed to dodge out of the way.