Blue Hope: (Book 2) (Red Hope) Page 26

  “Dammit!” she yelled. “Get us away from here! Go! Go!”

  She looked at her RADwarn card again.

  It was black.

  She felt nauseous and vomited. Jim followed.

  Roberto swung the joysticks away, but one of the propellers failed. The computer monitors glitched — the image flickered on for a few seconds before turning off completely.

  The vertical-control propeller went full-blast sending them up a few feet, then reversing, slamming the sub into the seafloor. The crew heard pops and cracks coming from the hatch.

  The propeller reversed again.

  Over and over, the sub rose up and slammed back down to the floor right next to the roiling ball of bubbles from the plutonium. The ball of boiling seawater glowed an eerie shade of orange.

  Alexis slammed her hand on the toggle switch to release the ballast so they could ascend quickly, but nothing happened.

  Crack!

  Each bounce on the seafloor caused more damage. The hatch started to fail, letting in laser beams of high-pressure seawater. One hit Jim on the shoulder, slicing his skin open — blood sprayed everywhere. He screamed in shock.

  A rumble began, followed by a searing metal crunching sound. The three occupants stared at the hatch as the thick Lexan window began cracking and pushing inward toward them, as if it were being extruded inward. Instinctively they tried to back up, but there was nowhere to go.

  Up on the ocean surface in the Deep SEAK Explorer, Captain Nadino watched the scene unfolding on monitors mounted on the walls of the research room. Several assistants looked to him for guidance.

  “What can we do, Captain?”

  He sat motionless, paralyzed with terror. His hand covered his mouth as he saw his worst nightmare unfolding nearly six miles below him. He heard their screams, followed by a final muffled thump.

  The video went dead.

  Captain Nadino’s eyes were wide and glassed over. He ran his palm over his entire face to remove the layer of sweat. Without saying a word, he stood up and opened the door to the hallway. He stumbled out, leaning on the wall, and made his way down the long corridor to the bridge. He ran up to the ship’s pilot and pushed him out of the way.

  The captain paused for a moment to take a look around at his crew — they stared at him like he was a madman. He turned back to the ship controls and slammed the throttle full forward. The huge research ship lurched.

  “God help us all!” he yelled out.

  CHAPTER 64

  Behind the waterfall

  Zhuvango Falls

  Africa

  Adam and his crew of shovelers now called this place the Martian Lab. After all, they figured, that’s the only thing it could be. The construction was like nothing they’d ever seen. So far everything shone like polished metal, presumably stainless steel, but they didn’t know for sure.

  So far they had uncovered the entire roof and much of the front. After what felt like a wild goose chase, they were excited to have found the site where Martians landed on Earth. The structure had one peculiarity though — it didn’t contain a single window or a door.

  “So how the hell do we get in?” Adam asked.

  “We’ll dig through the night and keep searching I guess. There’s gotta be a door,” Leroy answered.

  “There’s always a door,” Adam laughed.

  They continued to dig until ten o’clock when all of the dirt on the top and sides was gone. It was as if a giant rectangular trailer found its way into a cave deep in the African jungle. Buried in dirt.

  The group climbed down and stood in front of the structure, pondering the great question: how would they get in?

  From the corner of Adam’s eye, he saw a flash of light. He turned his head just in time to see it. All of the elevated ledges in the cave glowed brightly as the bugs started roiling. They flew around in a swarm, illuminating the entire cave with a pulsating storm of glows. Then all at once, they dove toward the trailer, flew right past the crew and out the side of the waterfall.

  Adam ran after them, blasted through the waterfall, and kept running into the clearing next to their campsite. Above him, the fireflies enveloped the entire sky, creating a second star field, moving and undulating, covering up the Moon and Mars nearby. Adam stood there dumbfounded — he’d never seen such a dazzling display of lights before.

  “Hey Adam!” Leroy yelled. “Come back in here!”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” Adam said. His grin stretched from ear to ear.

  “No, you gotta come now.”

  Adam heard the urgency in Leroy’s voice and jogged back into the cave.

  “What is it?” Adam asked.

  “Look up there!” Leroy pointed to the rock ledge.

  On the wall just above the ledge were dark lines drawn on the cave wall itself — they’d been obscured by the bugs earlier.

  “Let’s get up there right now,” Adam said. “Before the fireflies come back.”

  The group ran over to the ledge and began to carefully scale the steep wall. They helped each other. Eventually, Adam was able to peek his head over the ledge. He had a flashlight clamped in his mouth.

  “What do you see?” Leroy asked.

  Adam spit the flashlight out on the ledge.

  “It looks like a caveman drawing of the Martian Lab,” Adam yelled. “They were probably just as confused by it as we are.”

  “That’s it?” Leroy asked. “Gotta admit, I’m a little let down.”

  “No, it shows a ramp or something, just under the front. Back when the cave-dwellers were here, there was some kind of corridor underneath the main part.”

  Adam lifted his cellphone out of his jacket. It had no signal, but it worked as a camera. He took a picture of the ancient sketch on the cave wall. Then he let himself down from the edge of the ledge.

  “Okay, I’m coming down,” he said, carefully climbing down the steep wall.

  They gathered around the front of the Lab.

  “What should we do? Sleep?” Roger One asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Leroy asked incredulously. “Let’s keep digging!”

  The men dug down underneath the front of the Lab. After digging down just a few feet under the building, the dirt became very loose and eventually fell into a large void beneath the Martian lab. Adam shined his flashlight through and saw a well-constructed hallway.

  “Okay, let’s clear as much dirt away from the ramp,” Adam commanded. The crew dug furiously until they hit a metal ramp that went down to the subterranean hallway.

  Each person turned on their flashlight and descended into the hallway. The ceiling was about nine feet above the floor — perfect for tall Martians, just like Adam had discovered on the mission to Mars the previous year.

  The hallway itself was plain with a few round bumps on the walls that looked like they might be lights. Leroy tapped on them, but nothing happened.

  “As interesting as this is, I still don’t see any…” Leroy interrupted himself.

  His flashlight illuminated a circular platform at the end of the hallway, roughly four feet in diameter.

  “Elevator?” Leroy asked. “But where are the buttons?”

  The men wandered over to it and stood on it. Adam stomped his foot down, sensing how solid it was.

  “Maybe,” Adam pondered, “but how do we make it go up into the lab?”

  “Right there...” Leroy said, pointing his flashlight at the wall. Attached to the metal wall were a bunch of small protruding shapes. Some triangles, some squares, basic shapes. Beneath the collection of loose shapes was the outline of a square etched into the wall.

  “Their elevator combination lock is a tangram?” Adam laughed.

  “It’s quite clever, actually,” Leroy stated. “They didn’t necessarily want to keep everybody out, just beings of lower intelligence than them.”

  Adam pulled at the shapes to see if he could remove them. They didn’t budge in that regard, but he could easily slide them around the wall.


  “I’m guessing cavemen at the time couldn’t solve the puzzle,” Adam admitted. “Well, gentlemen, let’s go suit up.”

  The crew walked up the ramp and to their campsite. The entire area was lit up with the gleaming sun peeking over the tree line. Victor had gone back to the zip line and Sergeant had pulled him across the river. Adam looked up at the cliff and saw the two men conversing.

  The men at camp opened their backpacks and pulled out full-body Tyvec suits with respirators.

  “Everybody ready?” Roger Two asked.

  “Wait…” Leroy said. “Get your satellite phone out and Google how to solve the tangram puzzle.”

  Adam laughed. “I think I can figure it out.”

  Like visitors to an industrial accident site, the suited scientists and the astronaut walked back through the waterfall and down the ramp to the Martian lab elevator.

  “Leroy, you’re an archaeologist. How about you and I go first?” Adam asked. “Got your tablet?”

  “Sure do,” Leroy assured him.

  The two men stepped onto the platform. Adam reached over and played with the tangram pieces. They slid along the wall very easily. As confident as Adam was, it took longer to solve than he predicted. Leroy sighed in boredom.

  “I got this, okay?” Adam said in frustration.

  More manipulations.

  Almost a square.

  Oops, that was close.

  Finally, Adam had it down to one piece. He slid it into place.

  Boooooooom……

  A slow rumble came and went. The lights in the hallway flickered to life. Adam saw the tangram pieces being dragged back apart by some invisible force. The roof above the elevator slid open and a rush of air blew down and out.

  The platform rose.

  Adam and Leroy looked at each other as they ascended. The two Rogers ran back up the ramp and stood in front of the lab.

  Adam and Leroy rose up into blackness where the platform suddenly stopped.

  “Okay, now what,” Leroy asked.

  “I don’t know. Take a step forward,” Adam suggested.

  The two men took a step forward off the platform, their boots landing on a metallic surface. The laboratory lit up with intense brightness. The two explorers squinted their eyes. Shelves and tables outlined the walls. The furniture was huge and stainless steel like some giant industrial kitchen, but made for tall Martians.

  Adam quickly swung around to make sure there wasn’t a straggler alien ready to pounce.

  Look left.

  Look right.

  They were alone. A loud humming sound started up and stayed constant. Then, to their amazement, the walls became transparent. They could see right through them out into the cave.

  The two men walked toward the front wall of the lab, above the ramp area. They looked down and saw the two Rogers standing in front of and below them.

  Adam picked up his walkie-talkie.

  “Hey Rogers?” Adam asked.

  “Are you being eaten alive?” Roger One asked.

  “No, but I can see you guys right through the walls. Can you see us?” Adam asked.

  “No, it still looks the same to us. Wait, are you serious?” Roger One asked. He held his fingers up in the V symbol and asked, “How many fingers am I holding up.”

  “Two,” Adam replied.

  The Rogers looked at each other. Roger Two held up his middle finger. “Now how many?” he asked.

  “Nice,” Adam said, chuckling.

  Leroy took video of all the desks. There were stacks of things on the tables that looked like books at first, but when he opened them, they weren’t filled with paper. Instead each one had pages made of shiny metal, thin as onion skins. Each one was covered in Martian writing. He looked up at Adam.

  “I think we found the motherlode,” Leroy said.

  The two men flipped through more of the books.

  “Oh my goodness, loooook…” Leroy said in a giddy tone. “Color photos of cavemen! They all have magnificent beards…”

  “Do you see any images of the Martians?” Adam asked.

  “No,” Leroy answered, shaking his head. “Not yet.”

  Leroy took out his tablet and ran a special app developed by NASA that would take images of Martian text and translate it in real time. He pointed it at the book fronts and the following common term came back:

  LOGBOOK

  One of the curious aspects of the Martian language is that it didn’t have lower case letters. This aided in the quick decryption back during the first Mars mission.

  “They left behind so many logbooks,” Leroy said.

  “Left behind?” Adam questioned. “But where did the Martians themselves go? We know they didn’t return to Mars.”

  “I don’t know, but look at these logbook notes. They talk about all the local animals and plants — this is incredible stuff. This one has recipes — oh man, they were trying to develop reliable food sources. Look, they ate a wooly mammoth!”

  “Just like the cavemen,” Adam said. “Maybe the cavemen taught them how to hunt, you know, like the Indians taught the pilgrims?”

  “Native Americans,” Leroy corrected him.

  In the middle of the room was an island table with a single sheet of metal paper on it, held down by a globe on a pedestal. The globe was white and had a button on top of it.

  Leroy brought the translation tablet over to the island table and took a picture of the handwritten note. After a few moments, the translation came back:

  “HALF OF OUR CREW HAS DIED BECAUSE OF GRAVITY SICKNESS. MANY FOOD OPTIONS HERE, BUT HUMANS ARE VERY VIOLENT AND UNINTELLIGENT. THAT IS A DANGEROUS COMBINATION. OUR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS IRREVERSIBLY BROKEN DURING LANDING AND WE CANNOT CONTACT HOME PLANET. WE HAVE DECIDED TO RETREAT AND MOVE SECONDARY LABORATORY TO LARGE WHITE SATELLITE ORBITING THIS PLANET WHERE GRAVITY IS NOT AS DANGEROUS FOR US. WE WILL AWAIT THE NEXT CREW FROM HOME PLANET. RADIATION ON WHITE SATELLITE IS STRONG, SO WE ARE MOVING SPECIAL MEDICINE SUPPLIES FROM THIS LABORATORY TO SATELLITE LABORATORY. IF YOUR SECOND EXPEDITION CREW FINDS THIS NOTE, PLEASE SEND HELP TO US ON SATELLITE SOON. LOCATION ON SATELLITE IS OUTLINED ON THIS WHITE SPHERE.”

  The two men moved their gaze from the tablet screen to the white sphere. Adam reached out and hovered his hand over the button.

  “Shall I?” he asked.

  “Do you think it’s a booby trap?” Leroy asked, only half seriously. “Like, if you push that button and the Earth detonates?”

  Adam thought for a moment and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Probably not.”

  Adam pushed the button.

  The sphere illuminated, showing a projection of the Moon. On one side was a red plus-sign. Adam touched it and the image zoomed in to display a giant hole in the surface of the Moon with a similar metallic laboratory sitting in the bottom of it.

  “In his note, he mentions the medicine,” Leroy said.

  “I know,” Adam agreed. “I bet they have an anti-gravity system up there.”

  “Anti-gravity on the Moon seems a bit redundant.”

  “Right,” Adam agreed. “But they were obviously making it down here too, so they must have a machine to make it anywhere.”

  Leroy shook his head in frustration.

  “I’m not sure how NASA is going to do it, but humanity needs that medicine pronto. Are you up for a trip to the Moon?”

  “No way, my space travel days are over,” Adam laughed.

  Suddenly, sparks sprayed out from the front of the laboratory and the nearby rocks. Adam and Leroy looked up to see the two Rogers take off running, disappearing through the waterfall toward the camp.

  ‘Uh oh,” Adam said. “That can’t be good.”

  The two explorers ran back to the platform and it sank down. They hustled up the ramp and out through the waterfall. They heard automatic machine gun fire coming from the top of the cliff near their truck.

  Victor ran towards them along the black sand shore of the river.

 
“Take cover!” Victor yelled. “Get behind those rocks!”

  Spurts of dirt were popping up all around Victor as he sprinted toward the NASA crew, jumping side to side to avoid the rain of bullets.

  The men quickly dove behind the rocks. Sparks were flying everywhere as rifle shots rang out, tracers coming from the top of the cliff. A group of about a dozen men stood at the top of the cliff, all holding rifles — shooting at them.

  Sergeant was hanging from the trolley and riding it down full speed with nobody to slow him down. As he neared the bottom, he let go and fell into the river. The poachers shot at him. Splashes of water popped up all around him. Sergeant got to the river’s edge and ran in a zigzag pattern toward the NASA crew.

  Victor and Lieutenant raised up their rifles and shot at the top of the cliff to give Sergeant cover, but a crescendo of tracers rained down on them. With no time to spare, Sergeant jumped behind a large bounder.

  Victor looked at Leroy and asked, “Do you have your satellite phone?”

  Leroy nodded furiously.

  Victor pulled out his wallet, took a note from the billfold and handed it to Leroy. It had “US Embassy” written on it, followed by a phone number.

  “Call this number. It’s the embassy. Then give me the phone.”

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Victor fired back at the cliff.

  The poachers shot right back.

  More sparks flew from the rocks surrounding the crew.

  Leroy called the number, occasionally flinching from the ricochets striking all around him. He handed the phone to Victor.

  “Hello! I need to talk with Richard Alizon! I’m in a Foxtrot Uniform situation,” Victor yelled into the phone.

  After a few moments, Victor started up again.

  “Richey! Just shut up and listen!” Victor yelled into the phone. “I’m with the NASA personnel and we’re under attack by heavily armed poachers. They are up on the cliff over Zhuvango Falls. Do you copy me? You know all those favors you owe me? Well I need to cash them in immediately. Send help right now. Remember, the bad guys are on the top of Zhuvango Falls and we are at the bottom.”

  Victor paused to listen.