Area 51: The Mission by Robert Doherty

Author:Robert Doherty
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780440223818
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1999-01-11T11:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Inside the Springfield the crew waited. The three foo fighters were still on station. Captain Forster was prepared to wait until he was just about out of oxygen—two months—before doing anything. He’d heard the Pasadena destroyed by the foo fighters and he had no desire to share that fate.

The bottom line, though, was that the ball was in the court of the politicians, and Captain Forster knew that he might well have to get close to running out of oxygen before any decision would be made. If it was up to Admiral Poldan, commanding the carrier task force just twenty miles away, Forster knew there would be nukes hitting Easter Island until there was no longer an island. But the ball was not in the military’s court.

• • •

On Easter Island, Kelly Reynolds’s body had all but ceased functioning, held in the field by the guardian. Her mind, though, was still alert. And she still saw images, slices of the past.

The largest statue of all, over seventy feet in length and two hundred tons, lay among four hundred other unfinished statues on the side of Rano Raraku. But there were no people to raise it in warning.

The last Birdman had violated the law. People had come from over the sea. From the rising sun, ignoring the warning of the Moai statues along the shore. They had talked to the Birdman, then left. He had gone inside of Rano Kau. He was gone for five days, and when he came back the people had split—those who remembered why they were here on one side against the blasphemers who followed the Birdman.

The latter began tearing down the statues, destroying the warning signs. The former fought them. The bloody civil war raged, but then the Black Death came and killed both sides indiscriminately until all traces of the old ways, the stones, the writing of high runes on the rongo-rongo tablets, all was gone.

• • •

The Guide Parker accessed his e-mail. There was only one message waiting and he knew where it was from, given that his address was available to only one place.

As he reached forward to move the mouse to open the message, he noticed his hand was shaking. He tried to steady it, but his nerves were unable to do that. With difficulty, he opened the message and read it.

The timetable had been moved up. There was no explanation, nor was one required. The orders were succinct and to the point. Parker sent his acknowledgment.

• • •

Duncan, Turcotte, and Yakov were walking up a steel staircase toward the flight deck when a crewman stopped them.

“Dr. Duncan?”

“Yes?”

The crewman held out a computer disk. “This just came in for you over the secure Interlink with Area 51.”

“Is the bouncer due in soon?” Turcotte asked.

“Yes, sir. Five minutes out.”

“Escort the passengers to the conference room,” Duncan said.

Duncan took the disk and she, Turcotte, and Yakov retraced their steps. “What now?” Turcotte asked.

“I don’t know.” Duncan turned on her laptop and slid the disk in.

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