| |
By the time Maddock reached the hangar bay, he was ready to pass out from exhaustion. The air within the facility was cold and hard on his throat and lungs, but he fought through pain and fatigue, knowing that one way or another, it would all be over in just a few more minutes.
He clambered up onto the nearest ship, using a row of precisely cut foot holes in its hull, and rolled over the side and landed hard on the metallic surface. It gonged from the impact, rattling his brain. Getting to his feet, he quickly approached the domed section at its center and touched the blood-stained glove fingertip to its surface.
The dome split and began to retract into separate panels, one by one, looking very much like the Sydney Opera House as it did. Not waiting for it to finish, Maddock hopped in and found a single throne-like chair at its core... And nothing else. There was no control console. No instrument panels or display screens.
It felt like the final straw. He’d been counting on being able to figure out how to fly the longship and use what he felt certain would be extraordinary weapons. Defeated, he collapsed into the chair, pounding on the armrests in frustration.
Come on, he thought. There have to be controls. How do I turn this thing on?
As if in response, something within the ship hummed to life. He sat up a little straighter, but aside from the sensation of energy pulsing through the vessel, nothing else had changed.
“Voice commands?” he wondered aloud, and then in an unconscious imitation of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, said, “Computer, lift off.”
Nothing.
“Of course not. You don’t speak English, do you?” And then he realized his mistake. The ship hadn’t reacted to what he’d said, but rather what he had thought.
But how was he supposed to think the ship into doing what he needed it to do?
“Guess I’ll have to wing it,” he muttered. “Ouch. Bad pun. I’ll have to learn it on the fly.”
Rather than try to give the ship specific commands, he chose instead to imagine that there were controls. He took a deep breath to order his mind, and then visualized a joystick controller, like the cyclic stick on a helicopter. When he had a firm mental image of it, he reached out, closing his finger on the air where he imagined it to be, and pulled back gently.
The hum intensified, and then the deck shuddered beneath him as the craft rose a few inches off the ground.
Marty McFly eat your heart out.
He tilted the imaginary stick to the right, and the ship pivoted in that direction.
Yes!
There was no more time to waste figuring out the nuances. With the ship responding to his nonverbal commands, he swung it around and veered toward the ramp where his friends waited. The ship cruised down the ramp, hovering a foot above the ground like a Star Wars landspeeder.
A moment later, he saw Bones and Tam, their backs to him, and beyond them, the monstrous creature Max had become. Max saw him too. Ignoring the incoming crossbow bolts, he raised Gungnir threateningly in Maddock’s direction.
Let’s see what this thing can do, Maddock thought. Weapons systems online.
A holographic image appeared in front of him like the heads-up display in a fighter jet. It showed a panel on the front of the ship retracting. Then a schematic of the system appeared. It took him a second to realize that he was seeing a scaled-up version of the crossbow arrows. It reminded him of an ancient ballista.
Increase speed and prepare to fire.
The longship reverberated beneath him, sending an uncomfortable tingling sensation up his spine, but the craft remained ominously quiet. That was when he realized that the explosions had stopped.
“I’m out!” Bones shouted.
“Me too,” Tam answered. “Time to haul ass!”
Tsk. Swear jar, Tamara.
They both turned, intending to flee, and then fell flat as Maddock guided the floating Viking-ship-shaped aircraft between them. He curled his finger around an imaginary trigger, and imagined crosshairs settling dead-center on Max’s chest.
Max must have sensed what was coming. Before Maddock could unleash the missile, Max leaped high into the air. Maddock tried to track him, but before he could reacquire the target, Max’s arc brought him down squarely on the long ship’s foredeck. He hit with the power of a wrecking ball, driving the front end of the ship down onto the ramp with such force that Maddock was almost hurled from the pilot’s chair.
He yanked back on the imaginary control stick and the ship responded by jerking backward, bucking the berserker off in the process. Max landed in a heap and rolled down the ramp for a good fifty feet before arresting his slide.
Maddock immediately reversed direction, thinking, All ahead, full!
He was thrown back into his seat as if a set of afterburners had kicked in, propelling the ship forward at an incredible rate of speed. It was all Maddock could do to keep his focus on the target—Max. But he didn’t fire the weapon.
The ship was the weapon.
The craft lurched again until it slammed into Max at full speed, the dagger-like ram at the front piercing clear through the berserker’s chest.
The impact threw Maddock forward again, but he was ready for it, bracing himself in place with his feet, and after the initial rebound, he lifted the nose of the craft up, with Max still hanging from the bow.
Maddock knew the injury wouldn’t suffice to kill the berserker. Already, Max was recovering from the shock of the wound, gripping the protruding spike with both of his clawed hands, trying to push himself off it.
Both hands... Maddock realized. He dropped Gungnir!
Maddock knew he would never have a better chance to end Max’s rampage permanently. He calmly curled his finger around a phantom trigger and squeezed.
Fire!
A projectile launched from the concealed weapon’s port and immediately detonated.
The explosion tore Max in half, along with the front end of the longship.
The recoil blasted the ship backward, though incredibly, it remained in the air. Even more unbelievable, Max—his upper half, anyway—was still clinging to what was left of the ship. He stared at Maddock, the fury in his eyes undiminished as he struggled to pull himself closer.
Maddock had one more wild card left to play. If that didn’t stop Max, nothing would. Either way, it was going to hurt.
He aimed the damaged ship at the broken platform below, and sent it moving forward. He framed a mental command—increase velocity to full in five seconds—and then rose from the chair and hurried aft, leaping from the stern even as the ship continued picking up speed.
Rather than attempting to land on his feet, he fell sideways and rolled, just as he’d been taught to do in airborne jump school. The jolt was no more painful than he’d anticipated, but the slope combined with his leftover momentum, sent him careening down the ramp.
He caught a glimpse of the longship and its remaining passenger disappearing into the emptiness where the laboratory platform had been, and knew that if he didn’t arrest his tumble, he would follow it down. Frantic, he drew his sword and drove its tip into one of the ramp’s smooth surface.
There was a flash of blue energy on contact, followed by a shower of yellow friction sparks as the sword tip scraped on stone, and then, it caught in a crack.
Please hold! He thought, hanging onto the hilt with one hand. His legs slid over the edge, but then with a jolt that nearly yanked his shoulder from its socket, he stopped. He cried in pain as his full weight hung from the tenuous grip of one hand. Far below, there was a bright flash followed by a thunderous boom and a rising fireball that churned beneath him with all the fury of a berserker, and seemingly, all the heat of an atom bomb.
With his free hand, Maddock tried to pull himself up the rest of the way but couldn’t find purchase. Worse, he could feel the blade grinding against the stone, quivering against his weight, slipping....
Then, a strong hand seized his wrist and stopped his plunge. The suddenness of it stabbed through his shoulder join, eliciting a yelp of pain. The sword popped out of the crack, clattered once on the stone and then fell past him into the blazing conflagration below.
Maddock looked up into Bones’ grinning face. “It’s about freaking time!” he gasped.
“A simple ‘thank you’ will suffice,” Bones said, straining to pull him up without losing his own footing. Tam appeared beside him, grabbing onto Bones’ belt. Thus anchored, Bones began hauling Maddock back from the brink. The pain in his shoulder was beyond intense, but he gritted his teeth and endured until he was safely on solid ground again.
“My shoulder,” he gasped, “it’s out.”
Nodding, Bones reached down, braced his foot against Maddock’s ribs, and pulled. The joint popped back into place, giving an immediate measure of relief.
Spent, Maddock lay back, happy just to be alive. “Tam,” he said, gazing up at the roof of the underground fortress, “next time I ask you for a favor, I want you to remind me what it’s really going to cost me.”
“I’ll try to remember,” she replied, laughing.
Bones cautiously peered over the edge. The firestorm was still raging in the depths. “So is that it? Is it over?”
Maddock took in a deep breath and then sat up. “Not while that spear is still around.”
He rolled onto his side and used his good arm to push himself up. Seeing his struggle, Bones gave him an assist, gently helping him to his feet. “We have to get rid of it. Permanently.”
Together, they made their way back up to the platform. Maddock spotted the spear, right where Max had dropped it. He picked it up, and even though he was wearing gloves, held it cautiously, as he might a pit viper, carrying it back down to the edge overlooking the abyss. As he made his way down, he thought about the undiscovered secrets that lay below—the answers to the question of who built the fortress and why, and the mysterious power source that made it all possible. Hoor and Sorensen were down there, too. Almost certainly dead, but maybe not.
“Tam,” he said as he gazed down into the flames. “You need to destroy this place. Blow it to hell. Collapse the cavern and bury whatever’s down there forever.”
He expected an argument, expected her to cite national security concerns as a reason to conduct further investigations, but she surprised him by nodding. “I don’t think anyone’s ready for this stuff,” she said.
Satisfied, Maddock held Gungnir out in front of him and let it fall into the inferno. “There. Now it’s over.”