Chapter 2
Blackwood moved silently, sneakered feet making no noise at all in the moist earth. He had to bite back a smirk when he remembered how often Ironhorse had railed at him for not paying attention to the survival lectures he insisted they all attend. Little did the good Colonel know that Harrison's sponge-like mind absorbed anything and everything thrown at it, filing it away until such a time as it became useful. It was certainly useful now. The future of the entire human race could rest on whatever information Harrison could glean about that device the aliens were building. If he waited until Omega Force arrived, it would be either removed by the aliens or destroyed in the resulting firefight. It was now or never.
The smells of the camp grew more pungent the closer Blackwood crawled. Now he could make out the underlying burnt odor of coffee brewed too long. They'd probably made the stuff early this morning and left it to boil -- not that they would care. The entire camp was no more than camouflage designed to fool only the casual observer. It would be abandoned in toto when they'd achieved their objective -- whatever that was.
Carefully parting the leaves of a small shrub, the scientist finally gained an unobstructed view of the camp. From where he was crouched, Blackwood could see the mysterious equipment -- portions of household appliances and computer games, mostly -- arrayed in configurations totally baffling to even someone with his eclectic background. He was just preparing to crawl closer, mesmerized by a tantalizing array of flashing lights on the far side of the console when the brush parted and a figure stepped into the clearing. No surfer ever looked so typically Californian: wavy blond hair fell over a brow which could have been sculptured bronze so perfect it was, and rippling muscles could not but be enhanced by the skimpy white tank top. He stood tall, sweeping the camp with a gaze of purest sapphire. The only thing missing, Harrison mused, was a surfboard. Then he looked closer, noticing for the first time the large radiation burn which gleamed wetly in the golden sun. Advanced cancer and hematoma. Another alien.
"Greetings, Envoy." The elderly hunter straightened from the fire, adapting a respectful stance. "We have completed Stage II of our mission. I am wiring the projector now and await only your permission to proceed to the next step."
"Hey, totally rad, dude!" the beach boy grinned. He sobered instantly. "Er ... I mean, the Advocacy is most anxious for this mission to be completed on schedule."
"We are nothing without your counsel," the other returned evenly. "However, we will require additional supplies of platinum before we can continue with the positron destabilizer unit. There is so little of the metal available on this miserable planet."
Positron destabilizer? Harrison inched closer, intrigued. What kind of power levels are these beings working with?
Patently uninterested in excuses, the blond alien flipped back his hair impatiently. "Where are your other two? They are needed for the briefing."
"Checking the perimeter. I will collect them for you." The hunter turned, striding directly for the bush under which Harrison crouched. Harrison held his breath.
"Wait." The Envoy held up a hand, clearly annoyed. "I will collect the two. You finish wiring the synchro-inertial projector so that Stage III may be begun without delay."
The hunter returned to his seat and picked up an egg beater than had been heating in the fire; it glowed a dull cherry red though had not as yet begun to melt. "As you command," he intoned, watching fascinated as the skin on his decaying palm began to sizzle.
The tall blond stepped to a small unit behind the hunter, which bore a large-loop radio antenna, and clicked a button on its mount several times. He then moved back into the brush, forcing Harrison to retreat to the cover of a fallen tree. His mind reeled under the enormity of the alien plan. A positron destabilizer! Disrupting antimatter on even a subatomic scale would result in a tremendous energy burst. And a synchro-projector.... Harrison bit his lip, horrified. The aliens were building a particle beam weapon using synchronous antimatter -- a positron laser! If they ever managed to complete such a weapon, the earth was doomed for certain!
Grimly determined, Harrison began to circle the camp, moving ever nearer the alien mechanism. He needed to get closer -- must be prepared to seize any opportunity to study the technology the aliens were using. If he could discover the secret of this, their greatest weapon, Earth might at last have a fighting chance when the alien armada arrived a few years hence!
His whole being consumed with the need to reach a vantage point closer to the enigmatic machinery and mind brimming with dreams of discovery, Harrison neglected to check the path behind him. All he saw -- all that existed -- was his target. Closer....
A noise from his right froze him into immobility. Heightened senses warned him of someone nearby. Aliens? When he wasn't disintegrated on the spot, Harrison gathered his courage, turned and crawled nearer the disturbance. It was coming from the near boundary of the alien camp. The scientist shifted a branch carefully so as not to rustle the leaves and stared. Shock nearly made him release it with a snap.
There! It was Ironhorse lying at the feet of a short woman in a perfectly tailored suit, which now carried the dirt and grime of several days' rough use. The incongruity would have been ludicrous had the woman actually been a woman and not the cold blooded alien killer she truly was.
Directly to the woman's fore stood a large negro male, legs braced and large fists clenched. Dressed in Army jacket and olive pants, the man was nearly invisible against the forest shadows, and somehow all the more menacing because of it.
Blackwood's quicksilver mind summed up the situation instantly if not encouragingly. Ironhorse was down for the count, and Blackwood -- untrained and unarmed -- was defenseless against the two alien soldiers. The only hope Ironhorse had was for the arrival of immediate reinforcements -- Omega Force.
Creeping silently backward, Harrison retreated several yards into the brush and reached for his mobile telephone. Before he could speak, however, some sixth sense brought his head up ... to stare directly into the arctic blue eyes of the surfer type the others called "Envoy."
"Your device cannot help you, dude." Its voice was as expressionless as its features, making the slang outré. "You are mine, now."
"Just like that, huh?" Harrison knelt quickly, fingers automatically scooping up a stout branch lying beside the path. "You want me, come get me," he taunted, pleased that the terror knotting his gut hadn't yet reached his voice.
The perfect features of the possessed body creased grotesquely in what Harrison assumed it used for a smile. To the scientist it resembled nothing so much as a macabre parody of human amusement -- or alien contempt. It started forward, unaffected by the possibility that its enemy could actually do it harm with no more than a piece of wood. Air whistled with the branch's passing and contempt shifted to surprise as it was forced to retreat, narrowly avoiding Harrison's vicious wipe. Undeterred, the surfer-envoy continued to advance on the grimly determined human.
Harrison stood at ready, adrenalin pumping a fresh surge of energy through his system. The alien's pause had given him that one precious moment he needed to analyze the situation; it didn't look good. He was a novice, relatively untrained in the martial arts yet not completely uninformed. One kata in particular replayed itself in his mind, one Norton practiced every day since they had begun working out together. A large tree loomed sturdy at his back and.... Yes! He had one chance. Harrison doubted he'd be granted another.
If only the alien could be suckered in....
Harrison feinted another swing, the branch passing harmlessly past the creature, clumsy and wide open. Harrison could almost see the alien mind working: Now -- while the human's guard was down....
The pseudo-beachboy rushed in, arms wide to prevent Harrison's escape, never noticing the trailing end of the make-shift bo until it had snagged between the spread legs. The muscular body crashed heavily into the tree where it hung, momentarily stunned. A moment was all Harrison needed.
Harrison disentangled the staff with a swift movement, then reversed the stick, driving the broken point deep into the tanned throat. A frothy gurgle unhearable from a distance of more than a yard struggled past that bloody wound, but no scream, for which Harrison was grateful. With a grunt, he pulled the stick free and plunged it home once again into the creature's chest. It hung impaled for a long instant, then slid down the trunk, dead before reaching the ground.
Harrison fell back, swiping ineffectually at the sweat on his forehead. Disgust twisted his features as the body began its inevitable dissolution, gelatinous flesh and foam soaking both clothing and forest floor. With an effort he tore his eyes away from the scene and stumbled back into the bush, desperately praying the fracas had gone unremarked by the other aliens in the camp. He ran blindly for several yards before collapsing to his knees and fumbling for his communicator. Habit alone dialed the correct number, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Norton picked up the line on the first ring.
"Yo!" Drake responded, tenor voice obscenely cheerful considering the circumstances.
Harrison's frantic whisper wouldn't have carried more than a couple of feet, and he could hear fumbling on the far side as the computer whiz increased the gain. "Norton, are you there?"
"Right here, Doc. What's the problem?"
Blackwood heaved a sigh of relief and squatted back on his heels, muscles threatening to turn to water. "We've run into some trouble, Norton. Contact Omega Force and tell them to move in now. Ironhorse has been captured. I'll try and stall them as long as I can."
"You'll try to what?!" Drake demanded, aghast. "Stall who? Harrison?"
But the scientist ignored the frantic hail. If Ironhorse was going to survive, Blackwood would have to act immediately. He could only pray he wasn't too late. ***
Blackwood moved silently, sneakered feet making no noise at all in the moist earth. He had to bite back a smirk when he remembered how often Ironhorse had railed at him for not paying attention to the survival lectures he insisted they all attend. Little did the good Colonel know that Harrison's sponge-like mind absorbed anything and everything thrown at it, filing it away until such a time as it became useful. It was certainly useful now. The future of the entire human race could rest on whatever information Harrison could glean about that device the aliens were building. If he waited until Omega Force arrived, it would be either removed by the aliens or destroyed in the resulting firefight. It was now or never.
The smells of the camp grew more pungent the closer Blackwood crawled. Now he could make out the underlying burnt odor of coffee brewed too long. They'd probably made the stuff early this morning and left it to boil -- not that they would care. The entire camp was no more than camouflage designed to fool only the casual observer. It would be abandoned in toto when they'd achieved their objective -- whatever that was.
Carefully parting the leaves of a small shrub, the scientist finally gained an unobstructed view of the camp. From where he was crouched, Blackwood could see the mysterious equipment -- portions of household appliances and computer games, mostly -- arrayed in configurations totally baffling to even someone with his eclectic background. He was just preparing to crawl closer, mesmerized by a tantalizing array of flashing lights on the far side of the console when the brush parted and a figure stepped into the clearing. No surfer ever looked so typically Californian: wavy blond hair fell over a brow which could have been sculptured bronze so perfect it was, and rippling muscles could not but be enhanced by the skimpy white tank top. He stood tall, sweeping the camp with a gaze of purest sapphire. The only thing missing, Harrison mused, was a surfboard. Then he looked closer, noticing for the first time the large radiation burn which gleamed wetly in the golden sun. Advanced cancer and hematoma. Another alien.
"Greetings, Envoy." The elderly hunter straightened from the fire, adapting a respectful stance. "We have completed Stage II of our mission. I am wiring the projector now and await only your permission to proceed to the next step."
"Hey, totally rad, dude!" the beach boy grinned. He sobered instantly. "Er ... I mean, the Advocacy is most anxious for this mission to be completed on schedule."
"We are nothing without your counsel," the other returned evenly. "However, we will require additional supplies of platinum before we can continue with the positron destabilizer unit. There is so little of the metal available on this miserable planet."
Positron destabilizer? Harrison inched closer, intrigued. What kind of power levels are these beings working with?
Patently uninterested in excuses, the blond alien flipped back his hair impatiently. "Where are your other two? They are needed for the briefing."
"Checking the perimeter. I will collect them for you." The hunter turned, striding directly for the bush under which Harrison crouched. Harrison held his breath.
"Wait." The Envoy held up a hand, clearly annoyed. "I will collect the two. You finish wiring the synchro-inertial projector so that Stage III may be begun without delay."
The hunter returned to his seat and picked up an egg beater than had been heating in the fire; it glowed a dull cherry red though had not as yet begun to melt. "As you command," he intoned, watching fascinated as the skin on his decaying palm began to sizzle.
The tall blond stepped to a small unit behind the hunter, which bore a large-loop radio antenna, and clicked a button on its mount several times. He then moved back into the brush, forcing Harrison to retreat to the cover of a fallen tree. His mind reeled under the enormity of the alien plan. A positron destabilizer! Disrupting antimatter on even a subatomic scale would result in a tremendous energy burst. And a synchro-projector.... Harrison bit his lip, horrified. The aliens were building a particle beam weapon using synchronous antimatter -- a positron laser! If they ever managed to complete such a weapon, the earth was doomed for certain!
Grimly determined, Harrison began to circle the camp, moving ever nearer the alien mechanism. He needed to get closer -- must be prepared to seize any opportunity to study the technology the aliens were using. If he could discover the secret of this, their greatest weapon, Earth might at last have a fighting chance when the alien armada arrived a few years hence!
His whole being consumed with the need to reach a vantage point closer to the enigmatic machinery and mind brimming with dreams of discovery, Harrison neglected to check the path behind him. All he saw -- all that existed -- was his target. Closer....
A noise from his right froze him into immobility. Heightened senses warned him of someone nearby. Aliens? When he wasn't disintegrated on the spot, Harrison gathered his courage, turned and crawled nearer the disturbance. It was coming from the near boundary of the alien camp. The scientist shifted a branch carefully so as not to rustle the leaves and stared. Shock nearly made him release it with a snap.
There! It was Ironhorse lying at the feet of a short woman in a perfectly tailored suit, which now carried the dirt and grime of several days' rough use. The incongruity would have been ludicrous had the woman actually been a woman and not the cold blooded alien killer she truly was.
Directly to the woman's fore stood a large negro male, legs braced and large fists clenched. Dressed in Army jacket and olive pants, the man was nearly invisible against the forest shadows, and somehow all the more menacing because of it.
Blackwood's quicksilver mind summed up the situation instantly if not encouragingly. Ironhorse was down for the count, and Blackwood -- untrained and unarmed -- was defenseless against the two alien soldiers. The only hope Ironhorse had was for the arrival of immediate reinforcements -- Omega Force.
Creeping silently backward, Harrison retreated several yards into the brush and reached for his mobile telephone. Before he could speak, however, some sixth sense brought his head up ... to stare directly into the arctic blue eyes of the surfer type the others called "Envoy."
"Your device cannot help you, dude." Its voice was as expressionless as its features, making the slang outré. "You are mine, now."
"Just like that, huh?" Harrison knelt quickly, fingers automatically scooping up a stout branch lying beside the path. "You want me, come get me," he taunted, pleased that the terror knotting his gut hadn't yet reached his voice.
The perfect features of the possessed body creased grotesquely in what Harrison assumed it used for a smile. To the scientist it resembled nothing so much as a macabre parody of human amusement -- or alien contempt. It started forward, unaffected by the possibility that its enemy could actually do it harm with no more than a piece of wood. Air whistled with the branch's passing and contempt shifted to surprise as it was forced to retreat, narrowly avoiding Harrison's vicious wipe. Undeterred, the surfer-envoy continued to advance on the grimly determined human.
Harrison stood at ready, adrenalin pumping a fresh surge of energy through his system. The alien's pause had given him that one precious moment he needed to analyze the situation; it didn't look good. He was a novice, relatively untrained in the martial arts yet not completely uninformed. One kata in particular replayed itself in his mind, one Norton practiced every day since they had begun working out together. A large tree loomed sturdy at his back and.... Yes! He had one chance. Harrison doubted he'd be granted another.
If only the alien could be suckered in....
Harrison feinted another swing, the branch passing harmlessly past the creature, clumsy and wide open. Harrison could almost see the alien mind working: Now -- while the human's guard was down....
The pseudo-beachboy rushed in, arms wide to prevent Harrison's escape, never noticing the trailing end of the make-shift bo until it had snagged between the spread legs. The muscular body crashed heavily into the tree where it hung, momentarily stunned. A moment was all Harrison needed.
Harrison disentangled the staff with a swift movement, then reversed the stick, driving the broken point deep into the tanned throat. A frothy gurgle unhearable from a distance of more than a yard struggled past that bloody wound, but no scream, for which Harrison was grateful. With a grunt, he pulled the stick free and plunged it home once again into the creature's chest. It hung impaled for a long instant, then slid down the trunk, dead before reaching the ground.
Harrison fell back, swiping ineffectually at the sweat on his forehead. Disgust twisted his features as the body began its inevitable dissolution, gelatinous flesh and foam soaking both clothing and forest floor. With an effort he tore his eyes away from the scene and stumbled back into the bush, desperately praying the fracas had gone unremarked by the other aliens in the camp. He ran blindly for several yards before collapsing to his knees and fumbling for his communicator. Habit alone dialed the correct number, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Norton picked up the line on the first ring.
"Yo!" Drake responded, tenor voice obscenely cheerful considering the circumstances.
Harrison's frantic whisper wouldn't have carried more than a couple of feet, and he could hear fumbling on the far side as the computer whiz increased the gain. "Norton, are you there?"
"Right here, Doc. What's the problem?"
Blackwood heaved a sigh of relief and squatted back on his heels, muscles threatening to turn to water. "We've run into some trouble, Norton. Contact Omega Force and tell them to move in now. Ironhorse has been captured. I'll try and stall them as long as I can."
"You'll try to what?!" Drake demanded, aghast. "Stall who? Harrison?"
But the scientist ignored the frantic hail. If Ironhorse was going to survive, Blackwood would have to act immediately. He could only pray he wasn't too late. ***
