V04 chicago conversion, p.9
V04 - Chicago Conversion, page 9
"Is there anything wrong, Sergeant?" the nearest of the soldiers asked.
"Spot inspection," Jennifer answered, her tone military and crisp. "Carry on with your duties."
The two saluted, waited for Walker to pass, then turned and marched off down the corridor in the direction the trio had come. Walker's finger eased from the rifle's trigger as he released his breath.
When Jennifer stopped again, it was in front of a wide hatch. Carefully this time, her fingers punched out a code on the panel of buttons on the wall beside the door. The hatch opened with a hiss like that of an escaping breath, a sound that matched Walker's own gasp.
"Now you understand the cold," Jennifer said when they entered the area beyond.
Walker edged his faceplate back and stared about him. He understood only too well. "This is the storage room you mentioned?"
Jennifer nodded. Her eyes lowered in shame.
"You slimy snakes." Janus pushed back his helmet's faceplate. All the color drained from his face while his gaze traveled about him. "You bastards. Even Hitler's ovens could not equal this."
Room or compartment did not describe the area. Canyon came closer to it. They stood on a wide catwalk that stretched for what appeared to be miles ahead of them. Walker stepped to the railing and peered down. His head went dizzy. It was like gazing at the ground from atop the Sears Tower. The alien-constructed canyon rose just as high above them.
Packing this immense, yawning chamber were row upon row of neatly stacked clear capsules. A milky gelatinous substance filled each of the capsules. But that wasn't what churned Walker's stomach—it was the shadowy but discernible human forms that floated within the gelatin.
Barrington, Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows, Des Plaines—the names of the Chicago suburbs the Visitors had struck rolled through his head. The populations who had vanished overnight were here.
"Packed in individual serving containers," Janus gave voice to Walker's thoughts.
Walker's eyes narrowed when they shifted to Jennifer. "Are they dead?"
The woman's head lifted. "They are in what you humans call suspended animation."
"Waiting to be served as a snake feast!" Janus spat. "How many are here? Tens of thousands?"
"More. This is but one storage area on the ship." Her voice was a shamed whisper. "I can do nothing about them. Hut I can prevent you two from ending up here—or as Alicia's converts. We have to continue if we are going to catch the shuttle."
Before either Walker or Janus could protest, Jennifer turned and trotted down the wide catwalk. Walker's legs confirmed what his eyes had seen earlier when they finally reached the opposite end of the walkway. The catwalk did stretch for miles across the capsule-filled canyon.
Jennifer exited out a door similar to the one through which they had entered. Once in the main corridors, she took a left turn, walked to a four-way junction, turned left again, and stopped by a circular hatch. For the fifth time her fingers punched out a code on a panel of buttons.
Inside was another maintenance tunnel-shaft lined with the same pipes and wires Walker had seen in the first. However, the access point to the lower level was another thing entirely!
When she halted, it was beside a gaping rectangular shaft. The deafening roar of a hurricane came from within.
"It's the ventilation shaft," she shouted above the rush of ait "It's our only way down."
Walker edged to the shaft and peered down. A blast of frigid air, an Arctic-cold gale, slammed into his face. Blinking away tears that began to turn to icicles on his cheeks, he squinted and focused.
The shaft dropped away for a hundred feet. There he saw openings to the lower level on either side of the stainless steel well. Three thigh-thick pipes ran across the shaft from one opening to the other. Below that the shaft yawned downward forever. Walker's head turned from side to side, searching for a ladder. There was none.
"How in hell are we supposed to get down?" he yelled at the top of his lungs.
With a surprisingly strong arm, Jennifer pulled him away from the ventilation shaft. Slinging her rifle over a shoulder, she stood on the edge of the shaft, stretched legs and arms wide, then did a slow-motion fall into the shaft.
"No!" Walker's arm lashed out to grab the loose folds of her red uniform. His fingers snapped closed on empty air. In horror he watched the woman fall down the shaft.
The terror twisting his face abruptly washed away in a wide grin. Jennifer didn't fail; she floated. In her sky diver's position, the hurricane rush of air was almost a complete counterforce to her weight. Instead of plummeting to her death, she sank slowly down the shaft to gently alight on the pipes below. She turned, waved up at the two men above her, then crawled along the pipes into the opening on the opposite side of the shaft.
"Sam, I cannot . . ." Janus's face was white as a sheet, his eyes saucer wide.
"Yes, you can!" Walker shouted. "It's the only way. You'll do it even if I have to push you!"
Arm about his friend's waist, Walker tugged Janus to the gaping mouth of the shaft. "Now raise your arms and spread your legs!"
While the old man complied, Walker gave his back a nudge. Janus fell forward. Curses minutely detailing the younger man's parental relationship to a female dog, his preferred sexual partners, and the eternal destination of his soul yowled up the shaft while Janus floated down to land on the pipes. With Jennifer's helping hand, he crawled into the waiting opening.
Walker slung his rifle on his right shoulder, held arms and leg's wide, and tumbled facedown into the icy blast of air. I 01 an instant his stomach threatened to leap into his mouth. I hen the air cushioned him. Like a feather on a gentle breeze, he drifted down to the pipes below. Seconds later he stood in the maintenance shaft, rubbing circulation back into his arms.
"Hay one lies outside that hatch." Jennifer pointed to an exit seventy-five feet down the service tunnel. "We have ten minutes to find and get ourselves aboard the shuttle. Lower your faceplates and remember to keep quiet!"
Walker slipped the rifle from his shoulder and double-checked its setting. If their flight through the Mother Ship had been some elaborate ruse, Alicia's trap awaited them outside the hatch. He snapped down his faceplate, waiting lor his eyes to adjust to the nightlike darkness, and nodded lor Jennifer to proceed.
Once through the hatch his apprehension tripled. Unlike their arrival on the Mother Ship, the landing bay now stood deserted except for three Visitors talking beside the open doors to a shuttle on their left. Walker's fingers curled around the trigger, ready to empty the weapon before he was taken again.
"We'll wait here until the two workers leave." Jennifer tilted her head toward the shuttle. "I'll handle the guard."
Mouth filled with cotton, Walker did the only thing he could—he waited. Minutes that seemed to stretch into hours dragged by. Eventually the two helmetless workers laughed, waved, and walked from the vehicle. Jennifer nodded and started forward with Walker and Janus at her heels.
"Private, you're assigned to guard duty here, not recreation period!" Jennifer's voice assumed the crisp military tone Walker had heard earlier. "Why are you fraternizing with workers?"
The shuttle's sole guard pivoted. His helmeted head located Jennifer, and he snapped to rigid attention. In a blur of black, the woman's rifle jerked up. The butt of the weapon slipped beneath the edge of the faceplate to solidly connect with a concealed chin. The soldier crumpled to the ground with a grunt. Jennifer's muzzle swung about to cover him. He didn't move.
"If he twitches, fry him," she said, looking at Janus. Then to Walker she added, "Come with me. We've still got a pilot to deal with."
Walker darted into the open shuttle at her side. The lone pilot inside provided less of an obstacle than the guard. Jennifer merely pressed her rifle to his temple and threatened to empty his head of what little brains he possessed unless he did exactly as she ordered. With a gulp and a determined nod, he accepted her terms.
"Drag the guard inside," she ordered Walker. "We don't want him to be discovered, not when we're this close to escaping."
Without protest, Walker exited the craft and with Janus's help hauled the unconscious soldier into the squad vehicle. The craft's door closed behind them. Walker jerked around. Jennifer still stood with her rifle to the pilot's head. She hissed rapid-fire orders at the man in their native tongue.
The pilot obeyed without comment. His hands grasped a control lever at the side of his couch and moved it forward. The shuttle slipped across the landing bay, nosing toward the port that opened before the craft. He edged the lever down and the craft shot from the Mother Ship into the void of space.
"Get him and the guard into the storage compartment," Jennifer called out as she waved the pilot from the couch.
When Walker's muzzle motioned the man to the rear of the ship, Jennifer took the controls. She flicked a switch on the console in front of her. A hiss came from behind Walker.
He risked a glance. The storage compartment's door slid open.
Two minutes later the door eased back into place, locking pilot and unconscious guard inside. Walker lowered his rifle and sighed. For the first time since Jennifer had appeared in the doorway of their cell, he realized the woman was exactly what she claimed to be—a fifth columnist! There was no trap, only a friendly hand extended toward two total strangers. •
Walker joined Jennifer in the nose of the shuttle. The motionless forms of the Visitor Mother Ships slipped by them outside. Ahead lay only darkness sprinkled with stars.
"You did it!" He grinned at the woman. "By damn, you did it!"
"We managed to get the shuttle, that's all." Jennifer tugged off her helmet. She shook her head; a cascade of brunette hair fell about her shoulders. There was no joy on her face when she glanced up at Walker. "We've still got to get you back home before Alicia discovers you're missing."
"You'll do it. If anyone can, you'll do it." He confidently squeezed her shoulder.
Jennifer's gaze returned to the panorama outside the craft. "With luck, Sam Walker."
Walker's jaw sagged when his own eyes shifted to the stars outside. A thin crescent of white formed in the darkness to his left—sunlight reflected from the surface of Earth's own moon! The Visitor invasion armada hadn't fled, merely taken one small step into space. They were hidden behind the moon.
As he stared in disbelief, a ball of blue marbled with white rose above the growing crescent. Home, he thought, basking in Earth's beauty. We're going home!
Chapter Nine
Walker's feet worked the control pedals while his hands shifted the levers on both sides of the pilot's couch. A blip of light on a minidisplay inset on the console slid two degrees off center of a circle that represented Earth. He reversed procedures and eased the shuttle back on course.
"A piece of cake!" He grinned at Jennifer. "This thing practically flies itself."
"In space all you have to do is lock your scanners on your destination and keep on course," she said, returning the smile. "However, in an atmosphere, the response is more like one of your own aircraft, only easier."
Like a child with a new toy on Christmas morning, Walker maneuvered the craft back and forth in a swinging arc. He wished for more control to fully test his ability with the shuttle, but with this particular squad vehicle, Alicia had eliminated the possibility of pilot hanky-panky.
Janus poked his head over Walker's shoulder, stared at the ever-increasing orb ahead of them, and asked, "Where do you intend to land this thing?"
"Navigational computer is locked on the outpost at
Arlington Park," Jennifer replied. "My attempts at overriding it have failed. We land where the computer takes
us."
Walker bit at his lower lip. Jennifer had sketched the scene waiting for them on Earth. Gerald and his immune shock troopers were dug in at the abandoned racetrack. Arlington Park's isolation made it a perfect location for the first handhold in the Visitors' bid to regain control over humanity.
"I still do not understand how they expect to accomplish anything with only two hundred men." Janus shook his head. "The air, the water, the land itself is poisoned now. They can gain nothing."
"Alicia gains a center of operations, one she hopes will eventually allow her to retake Chicago and the Great Lakes." Jennifer slipped back into the pilot's couch when Walker stood. "Earth's wealth of water is too large a prize to simply abandon."
"But the V-Dust! Everything is poison to you!" Janus insisted.
"Your scientists developed an antitoxin." Jennifer turned to the old man. "Do you think ours can be that far behind?"
Janus's shocked expression equaled Walker's. The younger man's mind stumbled while he tried to accept what should have been obvious. The red toxin was humanity's only weapon against the Visitors' might. He had never considered the possibility of the aliens' developing an antitoxin of their own. Yet he now saw it as a very real probability. After all, this race of extraterrestrial reptiles had traveled over eight light-years to reach the Earth. The best of humankind's space efforts had only taken a few men to the surface of the moon.
"It's not water or food Alicia's after right now," Jennifer said. "She wants Paul Nordine and others."
"Nordine?" Walker's head snapped around, and he stared at the woman.
"She paves the way for her eventual return. One by one she plans to abduct Chicago's new leaders and convert them, starting with the head of the city's resistance," Jennifer explained. "You two were supposed to aid in kidnapping Nordine."
Ice flowed along Walker's spine. How simple Alicia's plan was! Who would suspect the Visitors could return to a poisoned world? How easy it would be to steal away those in power, convert them, then return them to the mainstream of life. No one would know, no one would guess—until the Visitors came to reclaim Earth again. Then it would be too late!
"That means there is a traitor in Chicago working with the lizard bitch!" Janus's blue eyes fired with anger.
"Possibly." Jennifer nodded. "More likely it's someone—or several ones—Alicia converted before our fleet was driven away. Remember the conversions started the day we arrived. Months went by before anyone even suspected that our commanders were molding the minds of your leaders."
"A traitoi;" Janus repeated. He scratched at the white stubble sprouted over his chin. "Who?" With a shake of his head, he stepped to the shuttle's interior and sank to the floor, lost in thought.
Walker ran a hand over his own cheeks, chin, and neck. The myriad of needlelike whiskers gave testimony to his own long absence from a razor. A two days' growth, he estimated in an attempt to pinpoint the time that had passed since Janus and he had been abducted. The beard wasn't the most accurate gauge, but it would have to do.
Lowering himself into a seat beside Jennifer, he stared at the sphere hanging in space ahead. The vague outlines of continents he had first learned on a globe in grammar school were now visible beneath the snowy cloud banks marbled across his world's surface.
Out here, the events of the last days seemed so distant, as i hough they belonged to another man who shared the name Samuel Walker. The Visitors' defeat, Kathleen's murder, the ;attack on the racetrack, Alicia's conversion chamber, Jennifer, the escape, all muddled in his brain while he attempted to piece together a plan of action for when they landed.
"After we touch down, couldn't we take off and fly into ('hicago?" he asked while he gazed at the blue ball that was his home world.
"Computer's programmed to return to the Mother Ship on liftoff," Jennifer replied.
"Then we blow the damned computer," Walker said, "blow it now and take manual control."
Jennifer shook her head. "These controls feed directly into the computer which interprets the pilot's commands for the drive. It's similar to the system on your own advanced jet fighters. The computer makes certain the pilot doesn't press the ship beyond its performance envelope."
"Damn Alicia and her flight programs!" Walker hammered a fist on the arm of his couch.
"She's afraid of defectors," Jennifer answered. "More ;md more of us are beginning to realize Our Great Leader lied about your people."
"And you?" Walker looked at the woman. "Are you among the recent converts to the fifth column movement?"
A soft chuckle reverberated in Jennifer's throat. "I was t lie fifth column aboard the Mother Ship when the fleet left our home world. I had opposed Our Great Leader long before he decided to invade Earth."
"Yet you came with the fleet, are one of Gerald's shock troopers." Walker stared at hei; trying to probe beneath the human disguise she wore.
"My task was to organize opposition aboard our ship, to weaken the Leader's strength from within." Her green eyes darted to Walker. "In all honesty, I did it for my own people, not yours. Human beings were of no concern to me until I met the people of Earth. Then I realized Our Great Leader had once again lied to us."
She explained that she had discovered a traitor among the fifth columnists and planned to assassinate him during the battle confusion on V-Day. "You know him. He's called Gerald. However, the battle we expected never came. I never got close enough to him."
"You did get an antitoxin tablet," Walker said, realizing Jennifer had been among the force who had struck resistance headquarters in Lake Zurich.
Jennifer nodded. "I thought Alicia would eliminate Gerald for distributing the antitoxin. Instead, he's now the spearhead for her new invasion of your planet. I am letting him live until I'm certain of Alicia's plans."
"Now you're saving the necks of two strangers instead of dealing with him," Walker said. "What if something happens to us? Surely you're needed on the Mother Ship."
Jennifer shrugged and smiled. "Saving two lives seems more important than taking one. As to the Mother Ship, there are others among our numbers as capable as I—more so. I will be missed, but our efforts will not end. And once we've landed, I'm in your hands, yours and Janus's."
"Our hands?" Walker stared at her, uncertain what she meant.
He grimaced when her meaning penetrated. For two utter strangers, Jennifer had sacrificed her world. In freeing them from the cell and piloting them to Earth, Jennifer had completely cut herself off from the Mother Ship and her own people. There was no turning back for her now. Not with the two witnesses against her packed away in the storage compartment.
