The Altreian Enigma (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 2) Read online

  Jack gritted his teeth and swung his legs, barely managing to wrap them around the tree trunk. He hung there for a second, breathing hard, then worked his way, hand over hand, until he could wrap his arms around the trunk, too. For several seconds he stayed where he was, three feet off the ground, hugging the tree like a frightened koala, while the stonelings gathered below, reaching up toward him with their razor-sharp pincers.

  This damn day just keeps on getting better.

  Well, he couldn’t stay here, and he damn sure couldn’t go down, so that left one option. Jack looked up. The tree trunk rose up to a height of fifty feet or more, the branches increasing in number the higher they were. And the tree bark was rough. Still, the climb would have been relatively easy if his arms and legs weren’t trembling like they were stricken with palsy.

  Jack gathered himself, sliding his knees outward as he gripped the trunk with the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands. Then, ever so slowly, he worked his way up, pausing whenever he could rest his feet on a branch to spend a few moments for recovery. Thirty feet up, he found a spot where three branches crossed each other. Moving out onto them, Jack collapsed onto this natural hammock.

  Then, ignoring the distant voice of Khal Teth whispering in the back of his mind, he closed his eyes and slept.

  The overlord’s yacht rose and swayed beneath him, despite the best efforts of the hover stabilizers. The storm on the distant horizon drove ahead of massive swells. He could have had his captain take the ship to full hover, but where was the joy in that? After all, his was the one Altreian race whose ancestors had crawled from the sea while maintaining their marine evolutionary connection. Unfortunately, these rough conditions were making the recovery operation quite difficult.

  Parsus didn’t need to be here; he had just wanted to see the place where his brother had died. Perhaps this outcome was better. The alternative was to return Khal Teth to his interdimensional prison. Surely death was preferable. Parsus had done his twin a favor.

  His personal assistant approached, and Parsus turned to meet him, the movement stiff due to the cryo-healing cast on his knee.

  “Overlord, the searchers report that they have recovered a portion of the hovercraft’s bridge decking that was heavily stained with blood.”

  Parsus felt his throat tighten in anticipation of good news. “And the scans?”

  “None of it was a match for Khal Teth.”

  “Ah, well,” said Parsus with a glance toward the approaching storm, “it does not matter. Nobody could have survived that strike.”

  “He might have jumped overboard.”

  Parsus laughed. “And done what? Swim to one of those islands? I could not do it. Could you?”

  His assistant was military, but he slowly shook his head. “Not at the moment. Maybe, if I was in peak condition.”

  Turning his gaze back to the heaving swells, Parsus issued his instructions. “Order the task force back to base. Tell the captain to bring the ship to full hover and take us back to the Parthian.”

  His assistant turned and strode back toward the bridge.

  Parsus returned to his deck chair and seated himself in preparation for the return trip. His mind was drawn back to the way Khal Teth had physically assaulted him and his guards before fighting his way out of the Parthian. That behavior was not in his nature. What had the void done to him?

  As the yacht rose into the air and accelerated into its turn, he trembled.

  Surely it was only the approaching storm.

  CHAPTER 22

  With her dirty-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, Galina Anikin, under the guise of Nikina Gailan, entered the cobblestoned Rothenburg ob der Tauber Marktplatz. Her shorts, sleeveless red T-shirt, and tennis shoes marked her as just one of the many visitors who had come to sample the Franconian wines at the August wine festival. An extra infusion of tourists had been bused in from a river-cruise ship docked in Würzburg, making the square even busier than expected. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, the fairgoers were enjoying the buzz from sampling the festival’s bounty.

  Ignoring the leering advances of two inebriated men whose bellies hung over their belts, she moved through the crowd casually, seeming to take dreamy pleasure in the colorful half-timbered buildings of the walled city and the flower boxes that hung from their windows. A red purse hung inside her left elbow, perfect concealment for the Ruger LCP and the black combat dagger it contained. The pistol held only seven bullets, six in the magazine and one in the chamber. That was more than she would need.

  Her target, an inconspicuous balding man to whom few people would give a second glance, moved at a leisurely pace along the line of vendor stands, weaving his way through the crowd, never taking a sip from the plastic wineglass in his left hand. He followed Aaden Bauer with the easy manner of a trained assassin, patiently waiting for his opportunity to strike.

  She scanned the plaza and the side streets, her eyes seeking the assassin’s two companions. They knew that the leader of the German branch of the Safe Earth resistance wasn’t in Rothenburg for the festival but for a meeting with key members of the movement. They even knew the building where the group would meet down one of the cobblestone walkways that led out of the square.

  Knowing her reputation, Aaden had been happy that she had volunteered to provide security on this day trip. Nikina smiled. The setup had been absolutely perfect.

  She increased her pace, closing the gap between herself and Aaden without seeming to exert any effort. As he passed a line of umbrella-shaded tables outside adjacent cafés and turned into one of the narrow alleys, two diners, a tall man and his female companion, rose to join the bald assassin as he followed Aaden around the corner. Once again Nikina lengthened her stride, turning into the alley behind them.

  The dark-haired woman in the rear stopped, her hand pulling a gun from beneath her vest as she turned. Nikina shot her in the face, putting two more bullets into the backs of the men who had begun sprinting toward Aaden, the noise of gunshots echoing off the buildings on either side of the narrow alley. The man on the right sprawled facedown, his gun clattering across the rough cobblestones. But the bald man staggered into the wall as he tried to bring his own gun to bear on Nikina. Her next shot tore his throat out, sending his shot winging off the alley wall to her right.

  Screams from the Marktplatz she’d just exited told her that panic was rapidly spreading through the crowd. Good.

  Nikina fired a second bullet into the other prone man, splattering his brains across the cobblestones where he lay. Then she moved to the doorway where Aaden had taken cover, calling out as she approached.

  “Aaden. It’s Nikina. Don’t shoot.”

  He peeked around the corner, then stepped out, relief showing on his hard features as he lowered his weapon.

  “Thank God!”

  “Time to panic,” she said, returning the Ruger to her purse and grabbing his arm.

  She adopted a terrified expression, glad to see the speed with which he grasped her plan. Aaden tucked his gun away and raced after her out of the alley and back into the plaza. At a dead run, the two of them merged with the mob of frightened people who overturned tables, chairs, and vendor booths in their desperation to get away from the shooting.

  Seven green-uniformed Polizei waved the crowd away from the square as they took up tactical positions, sighting across their submachine guns as they scanned the Marktplatz for terrorist targets.

  Nikina and Aaden forged their way through the crowds, heading for one of the walking gates that allowed foot traffic to enter or exit the walled city. Once outside, they found their parking spot, climbed into Aaden’s white sedan, and accelerated into traffic. Behind them, the mournful wail of converging sirens accompanied their flight.

  When the sedan had made its way out of the village and onto the A7 toward Würzburg, Nikina’s thoughts shifted to the Smythes, Jack Gregory, and Janet Alexandra Price, the sniper who had killed her lover. She had knelt beside Daniil’s body, strok
ing his shaved head as the hole in his forehead oozed blood and gray matter down his face and onto the firelit Lima street.

  The sedan accelerated to one hundred miles per hour on the autobahn, but Nikina never even noticed. With her mind lost in the not-so-distant past, her right hand lovingly stroked the Ruger.

  Alexandr Prokorov wasn’t fully satisfied, but he was pleasantly surprised with Dr. Guo’s progress in getting the Friendship Gate back on schedule. His only frustration came from the utter failure of the FSS intelligence apparatus to locate the Smythes. The couple had gone quiet in a way he wouldn’t have believed possible. The AI they were using had learned to cover its tracks so effectively that none of the UFNS member nations had been able to find any trace of the entity. He could only conclude that the three ex-NSA computer geniuses—Jamal Glover, Eileen Wu, and Denise Jennings—had somehow managed to link up with the Smythes and unleash the AI known as Virtual Jamal to assist them.

  He pushed back from his desk and moved to the wall-sized view-screen that today doubled as his window onto the world. The electromagnetically sealed FSS headquarters building had no real windows. But with a selected camera feed routed to his office wall, he enjoyed a wonderful late-August view of Haagse Bos, the forest of The Hague. This peaceful park was the last remnant of a forest that once stretched across Holland.

  In World War II, the Nazis had used the area to launch V-2 rockets at England. Fittingly, the park now bordered the organization that would soon put an end to all of the wars that plagued mankind.

  Prokorov sighed and returned to his desk. Unfortunately, a lot more blood would have to be spilled along the path to utopia.

  CHAPTER 23

  Wearing a long black raincoat, Mark walked toward the door-mounted light that was dimly visible through the swirling nighttime fog. The Glock felt good beneath his left arm. Having driven his car through the guard gate that provided access to the Hanau Trans-Shipping Company’s warehouse complex, Mark had checked in as Hans Dreshen, his badge verifying his status as a senior representative of the parent company’s Swedish owners. Having been previously alerted to his imminent arrival, the gate guards had ushered him through.

  Upon reaching the small west-side door of the third warehouse left of the main gate, Mark held his badge up to the reader and heard the lock release. As he opened the door, the motion detector turned on the interior lights, revealing a sparsely furnished office with a gray steel-case desk and a single rolling chair. The room had no phone or computer.

  Mark made his way to the only other door, set in the far wall. Opening it, he stepped into a vast, unlighted open space, his sonar-interpretation ability allowing him to see via the echoes his entry had made. He reached out and switched on the bank of LED ceiling lights.

  Except for several forklifts lined up along the wall to Mark’s left and two overhead cranes, the warehouse was empty. He flipped another pair of switches, sending the two broad truck-access doors rumbling open on the south wall, allowing tendrils of fog to drift in through the openings.

  Mark lifted his cell phone and pressed the button that would open the quantum-entangled connection to Heather’s phone in New Zealand. She answered almost immediately.

  “Hi, my love,” she said. “How was your trip?”

  “Uneventful, thanks to Robby and Eos providing electronic cover. I’m at the warehouse, just waiting on the trucks to get here.”

  “Janet tells me they’re inbound now.”

  “Anything else I need to be aware of?”

  “According to information Robby just uncovered, Prokorov’s targeting six weeks from tomorrow for activation of the Frankfurt Gateway.”

  Mark felt his gut clench. They were going to be cutting this close.

  “Anything Robby can do to slow them down?”

  “That doesn’t look good. The gateway-design documents Nikina provided show that Prokorov’s engineers aren’t using any software to manipulate the system. It’s all read-only memory or other hardware circuits specifically designed to perform the required functions . . . and those all have to be manually switched. It looks like all of those specialized circuits have already been installed. Also, we don’t know what changes they might have made since Nikina provided us that design info. You’re just going to have to work fast.”

  “Great.”

  “On a more positive note,” Heather said, “as soon as you can get your gateway up and running, we’ll be ready to push all the robots you’ll need your way. Our dads have done some great work optimizing our production cycle.”

  “Including the micro-bots?”

  “Yes.”

  Mark sighed. That was good news, but only if he could assemble engineering robots, the cold-fusion reactor, and the Earth gate faster than planned.

  “Don’t worry,” Heather said. “You’ll make it happen.”

  Just then the headlights of the lead truck speared through the fog outside the warehouse.

  “Okay. Looks like our shipment is here, so I’d better hang up and get busy.”

  “Good luck.”

  He switched off the phone and watched as the first big rig backed into the warehouse.

  In the four weeks that Mark had worked alone within the city-block-sized warehouse on the outskirts of Hanau, Germany, he’d built the robots that he now used for a much larger construction project. Since abundant power was key to everything he was doing here, his first priority had been to get the van-sized cold-fusion reactor running.

  The components for that and an equally crucial device had been shipped around the Suez Canal to the port of Bremerhaven, Germany, in shipping containers before being off-loaded and moved to this facility.

  “Wow, you’ve been busy.” Aaden Bauer’s voice finally brought Mark’s head up from the status displays on the monitors spread around the U-shaped desk.

  Mark rose to meet his friend, gripping the other’s extended hand with his own.

  “Getting there,” he said, pausing to study the face of his colleague. “I heard about your shoot-out in Rothenburg.”

  Aaden grinned. “Didn’t even get a scratch. But if Nikina hadn’t been watching my back, I wouldn’t be standing here chatting with you.”

  “That’s the second time she’s come through for us in a big way. You’ll have to introduce me.”

  “I would have brought her today, but she had a pressing appointment in Munich,” Aaden said. “You got time to give me a little tour?”

  “Sure. I could use a break.”

  Mark focused his attention on the cocky German man. At six feet three inches, his two-hundred-twenty-pound frame matched Mark’s. If Mark had been blond, they might have been brothers. And like Mark and Heather, Aaden had eschewed the benefits of getting a nanite injection, partially because none of them trusted the nanites produced by the various world governments. Heather had discussed designing their own version of the nano-serum, but so far that had been way down on their list of things to worry about. Right now Mark’s biggest worry was Heather.

  Despite his cajoling, she continued to overextend herself. He had seen her tiredness in the occasional droop of her shoulders and the glazed look that sometimes came over her. And her lush brown hair had recently developed a thin white streak near the center of her forehead. Heather was approaching a breaking point, and unless he could find some way to lighten her load, even she would eventually succumb. For the last two weeks he had felt a growing need to get back home, but he couldn’t do that until he finished up here.

  “All right, then,” Mark said, “let me show you around.”

  Mark led the way into a large high-bay just down the hall from his office. He took the steel-grated stairs up to the catwalk that circled the room forty feet above the concrete floor. At the top he stopped, and Aaden stepped up beside him to lean against the railing and look out across the warehouse floor.

  “My God,” Aaden said. “You’ve already finished the cold-fusion reactor?”

  “Not me,” Mark said, pointing to the two
robots that worked to weld parts on another large piece of equipment. “I finished Fred and Barney two weeks ago, and they’ve built everything else.”

  Aaden frowned. “I thought you’d build one of your matter disrupter-synthesizers instead of the cold-fusion device.”

  “That would have taken too long. The cold-fusion reactor will provide all the power you’re going to need.”

  “Power for what?”

  Once again Mark pointed to the spot where the two robots toiled. “For that.”

  A puzzled look crept onto Aaden’s face. “What is it?”

  “Walk with me and I’ll show you.”

  Mark led the way along the catwalk until he reached a point directly opposite the inverted-horseshoe-shaped machine.

  Aaden stepped up beside him and froze. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

  “It’s a wormhole gate.”

  “Scheiße!”

  Mark clapped a hand on Aaden’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s only capable of linking to the one we have at our home base.”

  “Wait just a minute. Didn’t you tell me that activating a wormhole gateway would trigger an Altreian attack?”

  “Robby and Eos say these Earth gates won’t, and Heather agrees. The Altreian vessel buried beneath the Kalasasaya Temple is only programmed to detect the activation of interstellar gateways. These Earth gates will only use a tiny fraction of that power. But they will give us a door between here and our facility that we can send robots through, along with the materials your commercial 3-D printer will need. People, too.”

  For several seconds, Aaden stood still, his eyes watching the speed and precision with which the two robots worked.

  “I don’t see any 3-D printer.”

  “That’s because I didn’t send the parts to build one,” Mark replied. “We’ll deliver those through the gateway when it’s activated.”

  “And where will you get all the powdered metals and plastics that it will use?”